LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Shelf .^.5..^^^ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LATEST 



INTERPRETATIONS 



-BY 



y 



UiU^'tnU JU 



REV. S. A. GARDNER. 




BOSTON: 
UxiVERSALisT Publishing House. 



/ ^^ 






Copyright 1886. 
r Rev. S. A. Gardner. 



MILFORD: 

G. M. BILLINGS, PRINTER. 



CONTENTS. 



I. 


Rationalism, 


II. 


God, 


III. 


Evil, 


IV. 


Christ, . 


V. 


Christianity, 


VI. 


Selfhood, 


VII. 


Brotherhood, 


VIII. 


Consolation, 


IX. 


Immortality, 


X. 


Progression, 


XI. 


Revelation, 


XII. 


Miracles, 


XIII. 


Victory, 



Page. 

3 

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35 

51 

67 

88 

99 

115 

181 

147 

168 

179 

195 



RATIONALISM. 



RATIONALISM. 



Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord 

— Isaia.; i: 18. 

Can Rationalism furnish a complete system of re- 
ligion? We might as ^vell ask, Can a strip of land sup- 
ply food enough for a human being? Of course much 
depends on the length aud breadth of tlie sti'ip and on 
the manner of its cultivation. If one means by Kation- 
alism the system, or want of system, thnt has usually 
gone by that name, it must be confessed that it falls far 
short of meeting all the requirements of the human soul. 
Or, if one confines himself to tlie definition of tlic term 
as given by the lexicographers, which signifies ]iothing 
except what Rationalism might once have been, oi- at 
least, what the manipulators of words conceived it to Ije, 
then too, it must be deemed unworthy of commendation. 

Regarding simply the more ancient, and what, per- 
haps, even now, is the more j^opular application of the 
word, T inn not a Rationalist. But, by the same token, I 
am not a "Cliristian" and do not believe in "God" or 
*'heaven" or "hell." To one who Avill not allow to words 
the benefit of expansion, there is not very much at the 
present day which is worthy of belief. 

Taking language ns it was, rather than as it is, would 
fasten us to Materialism ; for as I have already said in a 
published article : "The Kingdom of Heaven has no 
vernacular. Spirituality is entirely dependent on bor- 



4 Latest Interpretatioxs. 

rowed words. 'Spirit' itself originally signified the air. 
'Soul' was the mortal life. The name 'god' w^as once 
sliared in common with the Most High and creatures of 
low estate. Even now we have, in England, 'lords' of 
Parliament, and in Amei'ica, 'lords' of creation. 'Christ,' 
at first, was any one who had been anointed. 'Jesus' 
and the Hebraic 'Joshua' had designated hundreds of 
human beings before the Great Teacher canie. 'Heaven' 
was that great expanse which is heaved up over our 
heads. 'Hell,' as an English word, had no association 
with punishment. 'Hades,' 'Gehenna,' and 'Tartarus' 
were likewise exclusively of the earth and very earthy." 
Words may be stubborn things, but the progres- 
sive ages compel them to enlarge their borders until 
they take on meanings of which the original word-makers 
had no conception. 

The question is not, what have been the short- 
comings of Rationalism in the past, but how much 
ground may it properly be made to cover today ? Bacon 
defines a Rationalist as "one who proceeds in his disqui- 
sitions and practice wholly upon reason." Perhaps such 
an one may be found who rejects Christ and immortality. 
But dare we affirm that such rejection is a necessity of 
unaided human reason ? Surely, the affirmation would 
savor strongly of infidelity. 

Some devout Christians find it impossible to exercise 
faith at all times and under all circumstances. Is that 
the fault of faith ? Shall we say that any particular 
system is false because men have sometimes failed in 
comprehending or applying it ? If so, all systems alike, 
whether Christian or Pagan, must be condemned. 

I claim for Rationalism that it is a sufficient foun- 
dation for philosophy, morality, religious belief and sa- 
cred worship. 



Rationalism. 5 

When Saint Paul depends on argument, as he so 
generally does, while making proselytes to Christianity, 
he is simply a Rationalist. When Christ says, "AVhy, 
even of yourselves, judge ye not what is right?" he, too, 
is an advocate of Rationalism, as also while employ- 
ing lilies and sparroAvs and manifold parables in aj)peal- 
ing to men's logical faculty to convince them of the 
Eternal Goodness. Why, then, should we fear to con- 
fess Rationalism? It is a good word, and by good 
men and women should be rescued from the infamy which 
the church has unjustly bestowed upon it. "Nothing 
can be more groundless," says Lord Brougham, "than 
the jealousy of natural religion by the advocates of the 
revealed." 

"Oh, yes," it will be said at this point," we, too, be- 
lieve in the fullest exercise of reason, with this precau- 
tion, that what the Bible says — that is, what we think it 
says — must not be reasoned away. This limitation of 
one's freedom is about as consistent as the mother's ad- 
monition, "Certainly, my boy, I am willing you should 
learn to swim, but until you know ho^v, you must not go 
near the water." 

Not only is man obligated to use his reason on all 
religious questions, but this obligation involves another, 
that of accepting the deductions of reason, even though 
they may conflict with his early teaching, or with the 
tenets of faith of his mother or grand-mother. 

We concede that some men have the gift of reason- 
ing in a very small degree, and that for these, an arbitra- 
ry authority — priest, book, creed or church — is of very 
great convenience. Yet, even in this case, a man is not 
a man at all unless he can reason enough to judge whether 
the so-called authority to which he is about to pin him- 
self for better or worse until deatli dissolves the contract, 



6 Latest iNTERPRpn-ATioxs. 

is trustworthy. At the very outset, therefore, lie is 
calle<l upon to rationally settle the great auestion on 
which everythiu- else is to be based. In spUe of him- 
self he must be a Rationalist even while deciding that 
he is not one, and turning over his soul to some outward 
authoi-ity. Thus to enslave himself may be his necessity 
but it is nevertheless most dei)lorable. " He is giving his 
better self into the keeping of a master who may or may 
not be kind-heai-ted. He may come to be told that his 
own dead child, love's first-born, is probably writhing 
in endless torture ; but there is no a])peal. If his spirit 
ual master says it, nothing remains for the poor slave 
but to do the best he can to believe it. He must mani- 
fest the same unbounded confidence as shown by the 
boy when he exclaimed : "I will ask my mother, and if 
she says it's so, it's so anyway, even if it isn't so." 

And these ecclesiastical masters, who take as much 
pride in counting their devotees as do Russian land- 
ownei-s in commanding their serfs, have been telling the 
ovei'-credulous, for example, that the identical \ody 
which is buried in the cemetery will re-appear on the 
wonderful day of judgment. "Not so," cries Rational- 
ism ; and the "Not so" of numerous questions is coming 
more and more to be heard and respected. 

In the sixteenth century, some large, deeply-buried 
bones were dug out of the earth in England. "What 
are these ?" asked the exploi-ers ; and the theologians, 
always ready with an answer, as such claimants of special 
divine surveillance ever should be, insisted that they 
were the bones of the "fallen angels," and gloried ex- 
ceedingly in this new and staitling evidence oi the truth 
of Milton ian Orthodoxy. Those who depended on the 
exercise of reason were quick to discover nothing more 
nor less in th-sc skeletons than the bones of fallen ele- 



RxVTioxALis^r. 7 

pliants. At this late day the naturalists of the ])ast are 
beginning to receive the credit which was i)iously denied 
them while they lived. Modern thinkers remahi to be 
condemned. These are the "poor" whom we have al- 
ways with us. We stone the prophets who are sent to 
us — until they are dead, and then canonize them. 

Theology, as a whole, is finding fewer bones in the 
angelic kingdom than were formerly found, yet still its 
various systems include much too much of corporality. 
We have outgrown the custom of punishing the iody of 
one who com nuts suicide, burying the remains beside the 
miconsecrated highway, with a stake driven through 
them, while all funeral rites are denied ; and, in America, 
we do not allow graves to put a stop to railroads, as is 
the case in China ; still, the symbols of flesh and blood, 
wdiich the Jew^s obtained from animals, and Christians 
from Christ, are too often allowed to completely obscure 
the living spirit to which it is the mission of flesh and 
blood simply to draw attention. The drapery has be- 
come a cheap substitute for the thing clothed. To shield 
and protect this drapery has seemed to be the chief con- 
cern of the church. History — which is nothing but the 
drapery of God's providences on earth — is regarded as 
eminently sacred while dealing with ancient Jews or 
early Christians, but exceedingly profane the moment it 
comes to deal with anybody else. Christ on the cross is 
simj^ly an historical fact, until spiritualized by the yearn- 
ing spirit of man. It is this spirit ualization which con- 
tains all the merit. I^o kind or degree of history, wheth- 
er in the Bible or elsewhere, can ever save an immortal 
soul. History, as such, is never sacred, only in the sense 
that all things are sacred in which the spirit of God is 
operating. Names, places and habitations should never 
be exalted above their true significance, for the smallest 
soul of the smallest child is o^reater than all of these. 



8 Latest Interpretations. 

Yet these objects of outward circumstance have consti- 
tuted the bloodiest fields of ecclesiastical warfare. As 
the Romans used to make gods of gold and silver and 
then hire guards to prevent their being stolen, so the 
priests of later days, with an equal want of confidence 
in the ability of Jehovah to defend his own belongings, 
have surrounded him with stubborn creed, cruel threat, 
and heartless curse. 

Wherever the doctrine of man's total or natural 
depravity still lingers in the church, it cannot be expected 
that Rationalism wall be looked upon with any degree of 
favor. It w^ould be decidedly irrational to ask a man 
who is inherently incapable of evolving any good thought 
or righteous purpose to ^o down into his own reason in 
search of anything godly on which to rely. Whether 
there be any merit in this totally depraved dogma of 
depravity or not, I suppose we shall never know until we 
find someone w^ho has consistently lived up to it. 

But if it be true, as Festus says, that "Heaven 
kindly gave our blood a moral flow," it need be no dan- 
gerous matter for man to think for himself. Is it not 
true ? Does not every mother believe it to be true ? 
Says Michelet : "What painful dismay would beset her 
if some gloomy thinker, some awkward sophist, should 
dare tell her that the child is born bad, that man is de- 
praved before his birth and other such fine philosophical 
and legendary inventions. Bat women are mild and pa- 
tient, they only turn a deaf ear. If they had believed 
that, if for a moment they had seriously accepted such 
ideas, all would soon have been ended. Uncertain and 
discouraged, they would not have put their whole life 
into a cradle, and the neglected child must have died. 
There would have been no humanity ; history would 
have come to an end at its very commencement." 

But the irrational creed is still saying of men, in 



Rationalism. 9" 

these exact words : '^They fell from their original rioht- 
eousness and communion with God, and so became dead 
in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of 
soul and body. ^ ^ ^ From this original corrni)tion, 
whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made 
opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do 
proceed all actual transgressions." 

It is because those bearing the evangelical name do 
not hesitate to swear by this creed, (perhaps swear is the 
proper word), that nearly all kinds of amusements, at 
one time or another, have been placed under ban ; the 
law being that if one couldn't ])ray, he shouldn't play ; 
and that if he could pray, he shouldn't do anything else. 
Two rules have been adopted: first, ascertain Avh at a 
man would naturally like to do ; and, second, don't let 
him do it. Punch's idea, as applied to family govern- 
ment, has largely prevailed. 

"Mary, where is the baby ?" 

"In the other room." 

"Go directly and see what he is doing, and tell him 
he mustn't." 

In puritanical times a certain young lady was told 
^ that it was wicked to wear curls. When she w^as "con- 
verted" she tried to make her hair straight, but in spite 
of comb and brush and conversion, it would not stay 
straight. Xature is stronger than dogma. 

One may try with equal persistency to straighten 
out the doctrine of Trinity — (if I seem to use this word- 
irreverently let it be remembered that, not being a Bible 
term, it can lay claim to no special sanctity), — the doc^ 
trine, which, as someone has said, should not be illustra-^ 
ted by three men riding in one gig, but by one man rid- 
ing in three gigs — the mathematical enigma of three 
times one is one, which in the language of Martia 



1.0 Latest Interpkktations. 

Luther, "is the more to be believed because iTn])Ossible ;" 
but tlie hiteut Rationalism of the iiumau mind will never 
find anything in the Su))renie lieing but the most |)erfect 
unity. 

Rationalism, also, in its own way, discovers the 
necessity of conversion and the new birth. To be born 
ligain is what some of our most prominent doctors of 
divinity sadly need. Many a good soul was born but 
yesterday, when it succeeded in bursting tlie walls of its 
old theological cocoon and spreading its wings in the 
broad sunlight of the advanced thought of the age. 

It need hardly be said that to the Rationalist the 
great book of nature, as scientihcally interpreted, will al- 
ways be worthy of profound respect. The manuscripts 
of God, as dug out of the earth, are liable to at least as 
little misinterpretation as has been the fate of those 
other manuscripts from wdiich various conflicting versions 
of Scripture have been made, and out of which an untold 
number of clashing sects have grown. Scientific meth- 
ods are not infallible, but it is nevertheless true thit there 

^^ Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones and good in everything." 

In the Epistles of Creation, if anywhere, a real 
Trinity shall be revealed, for, 

''Since the universe began 

And till it shall be ended, 
The soul of nature, soul of man, 

And soul of God are blended." 

I am aware that men of science are commonly 
•charged with heresy. According to the legal definition 
of heresy, the charge is, and should be, sustained. — "An 
opinion of divine things, invented by human reason, 
openly taught, and obstinately defended." This defini- 



Rationalism. 11 

tion plainly shows what people were thinking about at 
the time it was framed. 

Tliey supposed that any opinion invented by human 
reason must necessarily be wrong. If reason touched it 
uever so lightly it must be poisonous. Some of tlie 
virus of Eden's original serpent was given to it. Still, 
one might reason all that one pleased and arrive at any 
conclusion conceivable without being a ''heretic" unless 
he liad the courage and the manhood to openly teach what 
he conscientiously believed. Even then, he was not a 
^'heretic," if, when confronted by the doctors of divinity, 
he was enough of a coward to say that he was sorry on 
account of what he had advocated and to promise not to 
do so any more. But in the event of his turning out to 
be richly endowed with faithfulness to his convictions 
and largely possessed of moral heroism, he was roasted 
^live, wliile the meaner stuff of which his prosecutors 
were made, still remained to encumber the earth. 

But do representative men of science believe in the 
supernatural? They certainly do not deny its existence, 
if by the term supernatural is meant a spiritual force 
or beino- which mysteriously permeates the material uni- 
verse. To my mind, the belief in the spiritual origin 
and government of the physical and moral world, is a 
valid acceptance of the supernatural. This does not 
oblige one to give credence to every ghost story that has 
come to be classified under that head. 

Herbert Spencer may be taken for a Rationalistic 
scientist, standing at the head of the list. While others 
try to make it appear that he is a ^Materialist, his own 
writings are replete with evidences to the contrary. 
Referring to this, lie says: ''I have, in fact, pretty well 
given up attempting to meet this charge, perpetually 
refuted. Practically the attitude of mind of those who 



12 Latest Intekpretatioxs. 

make it may be thus expressed: — 'You shall be a Mate- 
rialist whether you like it or not; for, otherwise, we 
could not vilify you.' " 

John Fiske, another representative man in scientific 
circles, referring to Herbert Spencer, writes : ''He w^ould 
not express himself quite so strongly in favor of a belief 
in a future life as I do, but he has no objection to offer 
to the argument, with which he declares himself as gen- 
erally in full sympathy." 

Rationalism never need be driven to the direful 
necessity of accepting that peculiar materialistic system 
of philosophy w^hich recently called forth the cutting 
satire, "that mourners hereafter be given front seats at 
geological lectures, and the most deeply bereaved pro- 
vided with chip hammers to collect siDCcimens. 

Any system that should endeavor to disprove the 
existence of an unseen, living, spiritual world w^ould be 
entitled to no respect, and could lead to no happiness, 
even if it should hit the truth. In that event, the almost 
universal opinion that truth, wherever found, is grand, 
joyous and soul-iiispiring, would be overthrown. 

Dr. Johnson once said to a friend, "I would consent 
to have a limb amputated provided I could recover my 
spirits." The world could better afford to have all its 
limbs amputated than to lose its spirituality. 

Experiment has demonstrated that a tree derives 
comparatively little of its substance from the crude 
earth, while its chief bulk comes from water, light and 
air. It lives from above, not from below. In a much 
higher and grander sense this is emphatically true of 
man. 

In spite of the bad light into which Rationalism has 
been thrown by ecclesiastics, one may yet be a Rational- 
ist and adopt for his creed "Quench not the spirit." Let 
not sin, fear or painful doubt suppress the better self. 



Ratioxalism. 13 

In the far West there is a lake whose waters are so 
fully impregnated with mineral salts that any bird which 
tries to swim therein, obtains a hard coating upon its 
wings, which in time so loads them down that at last the 
poor fowl is drawn beneath the surface, where death is 
inevitable. How like worldliness is this ! How it fetters 
the wings of the soul, dragging it into the darksome 
depths ! What shall we say of such shameful treatment 
of one's divine portion? It is diametrically opposed to 
every dictate of Rationalism. 

The general exercise of reason would not lead to 
unity of opinion, for there will always be as many differ- 
ent conclusions on great questions as there are different 
grades of intellect ; but an important point would be 
gained in knowing that the most thoughtful minds were 
most likely to be right. Under the regime of popular 
evangelicalism, brains are in no high repute, inasmuch as 
the "faith" of the most ignorant man or woman has at 
least as large an estimate put upon it as that of the 
ripest scholar. Indeed, it not infrequently happens that 
illiteracy takes the premium and walks off with the 
medal. 

Rationalism will have the advantage of encouraging 
and stimulating mental improvement, to a greater extent 
than could be consistently expected or demanded of the 
*'faith cure" Christians. 

It w^ill be seen that the word "faith" is here employed 
in its abused — which unfortunately is its most general — 
acceptation. Any system of Rationalism which leaves 
genuine, clear sighted, intelligent faith out of the ques- 
tion, is little better — yet some better — than the faith 
which leaves out Rationalism. If the one has sometimes 
failed to discover a Supreme Being, the other is yet 
more uncommendable for ha vino- sometimes sriven us a 



14 Latest Ixteuprktations. 

Supreme Being too hateful to worshij). If tlie one has 
sacrilegiously renounced the supernatural, with far greater 
sacrilege has the other persisted in denouncing the nat- 
ural. If the one has frequently failed to catch a glimpse 
of the spiritual universe, it has certainly been more for- 
tunate in this respect than the other, Avhich has usually 
described the spiritual universe as being predestined, in 
considerable part, to eternfd wrath. But comparisons- 
are odious, although sometimes useful. 

"'Come now, and let us reasoh too:ether,' saith the 
Lord." Come now, and let us not reason together while 
the Lord is left out. Any reasoning Avhich does not in- 
clude Him as chief counselor will come to naught; just 
as any reasoning which with entire-heartedness does not 
depend on reason will find naught to come to. 

I venture to assert that all men at their best, what- 
ever may be their name, profession or sect, are simply 
Rationalists. 

When perfect honesty and sincerity are uppermost^ 
when the bias of early influence, or the arbitrary voice 
of external authority is no longer heard, everything- 
temporarily fades out of the mind exce])t what Reason 
approves. At such times there stands beside Reason a 
most lovely angelic form, which may be clearly identified 
as Reason's own dearly beloved child. Her name is^ 
Faith. 

Since it must be so that the real selves of men and 
Avomen are rationalistic, what remains to be said except 
to urge the application. 

Man is a being of unlimited wants and aspirations. 
Let him therefore adopt no system that cannot be made 
to grow as he himself grows. Progress is the watch- 
word. 

Rationalism is no substitute for Universalism, no 
rival of Christianity. It is merely the soil from which 



Rationalism. 15 

these ricli fruits ]i<ave derived somewhat of their sub- 
stance and flavor. Rightly understood, Clirist is still 
the world's need. Correctly ap])rehended, Christian 
Protestantism is sufficient for the eternally developing: 
soul. It is the storehouse of whatever fragments had 
been ,orathered from all the o-reat relii>:ions of the world. 
In addition to this it allows new discoveries of truth to 
be accepted and assimilated. Moreover, its very genius 
is grossly violated the moment it refuses to any man the 
blessed privilege of interpreting the Bible according to 
his own best light and conscience. It says to every in- 
dividual, "Be yourself the pope ; issue papal edicts tc> 
your own soul, and pronounce anathemas on . your own 
sins." What liberty is this ! We saw city after city in 
the old world voting the freedom of its corporation ta 
General Grant. How small a matter, compared with the 
glorious freedom which true Protestantism offers to all 
her votaries. She opens the gates of the wide universe 
and says, "Go and come as you like." If anywhere 
amid the infinitude of spiritual ti-easure, you find a gem 
that pleases you, take it. You ai-e welcome to its ever- 
lasting possession. The Heavenly Father is ever saying 
to his children, "Help yourself; whatever is Mine is- 
thine." 

Most heartily can we join with Oliver Wendell 
Holmes in singing: — 

"That one unquestioned text we read, 

All doubts beyond, all fear above, 
'Nor crackling pile, nor cursing creed 

Can burn or blot it; God is love." 

And wdth that other inspired poet : — 
"Could we with ink the ocean fill, 

Were the whole earth of parchment made, 
Were every single stick a quill, 
And every man a scribe by trade, 
To write the love 
Of God above, 
Would drain the ocean dry; 
Xor could the scroll 
Contain the whole 
Though stretched from sky to sky.'^ 



GOD. 



GOD. 



Canst tlioa by searching find out God? — Job.xirT. 

Up to this moment in the world's history, all civilized, 
and most uncivilized people, have been earnestly and 
conscientiously|engaged in trying to find God. If sun, 
moon and stars were once worshiped, it was because 
the idea prevailed that they were the habitations of 
deities. If sculptors were occupied in making images 
of wood or stone, the thought was that these devices 
\vould be accepted by the gods as bodies for their weary 
spirits. When animals received sacred homage, they 
were no longer regarded as animals, but as living vessels 
for the divine essence. When the ark, or sacred chest, 
was built, the fancy w^hich occupied the mind of the 
people was much like our own when we frame little 
bird-houses, expecting the fowls of the air to make their 
homes therein. All that gold and precious gems could 
do to make the cage enticing was done, in order that the 
Heavenly Dove might be persuaded to accept tlie offer- 
ing. When Solomon built his magnificent temple, he 
supposed Jehovah could not resist the inducement of be- 
coming its immediate and fortunate tenant. 

At the advent of Christ, human nature adopted no 
new principle in the work of searching for God, but 
simply made a new application of that which was both 
old and general. "At last!" cried Christianity in rapt- 
urous tones, "At last, the true God is discovered. He 



20 Latest Interprktations. 

dwelletli not in temples made with hnnds, but in the 
Son of David. Here and liere only is he to be sought 
and found. In absolute entirety he is clothed with mor- 
tal flesh. To this living image let all men bow." 

In due time arose numerous sects and began to tear 
each other to pieces. Come into our church, was the 
cry of each, for we only have the telescopic and micro- 
scopic instruments through which God can be really 
seen. Our reflectors are the brightest and our glass the 
clearest which the spiritual market affords. Go else- 
where and you will surely be cheated! 

Then came philosophy, poetry, art and science ; each 
and all engaged in the same grand enterprise, each and 
all claiming to have made the important discovery of 
the real God. 

I aflirm that all human effort, all philosophical and 
scientific acumen, receive their chief stimulus from this 
everlasting search after a Suj^reme Being. 

Darwin's doctrine of the Descent of Man, and Agas- 
siz's theory of special creations have their foundations on 
common ground. 

Agnosticism is simply trying to keep its mouth shut 
while others rattle off their noisy pretentions. It adopts 
the "still hunt" as the surest method of obtaining the 
desired end. 

As for Atheism, it pretends that there is no God to 
search for, only that it may spur others forward in hot 
pursuit, and compel them by opposition to produce the 
very strongest arguments in support of the faith they 
cherish. 

Washington w^as right : "If there had been no God, 
men would have been forced to imagine one." 

The fools referred to in Scrij^ture, wdio have said in 
their heart, there is no God, are neither numerous nor 



God. 21 

dangerous. There is another class wliicli is both. I 
mean those who so describe the Supreme B.^ing that the 
heart which believes in him is more agonized than com- 
forted. Considering Gjd's ill-repute — for which theology 
must be held responsible — the marvel is, that faith still 
possesses mankind. We cannot read the things which 
some of the Almighty's worshipers have said concerning 
him without piously and earnestly praying that the dear 
Lord may be speedily delivered from his friends. 

The Koran represents God as declaring: "Those 
who disbelieve, we will surely cast to be boiled in hell- 
fire. So often as their skins shall be well burned, we 
will give them other skins in exchange that they may 
taste the sharper torment again." And this : "They 
shall be dragged on their faces into hell, and it shall be 
said unto them, 'Taste ye that torment of bell-fire which 
ye rejected as a falsehood." Again: "The true believers, 
lying on couches, shall look down upon the infidels in 
hell and laugh them to scorn." All this is sickening. 
But do we hear better sentiments when we leave heart- 
less Mohammedanism and give ear to s^nie of the fol- 
lowers — at a distance — of Christ? 

Tertullian was one of the Christian Fathers, and 
this is his messao-e of love : "At that m-eatest of all 
spectacles, the last and eternal judgment, how shall I 
admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I be- 
hold so many proud monarchs groaning in the lowest 
abyss of darkness; so many magistrates liquefying in 
fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Chris- 
tians ; so many sage philosophers blushing in red-hot 
fires with their deluded pupils," etc., etc. 

The language of the Episco])al Rubric is quite 
preferable, although equally suggestive of cruel possibili- 
ties : "From thy wrath and everlasting damnation, good 
Lord deliver us." 



22 Latest Ixtkrpketatioxs. 

We wonder not at tlie words of Banyan : ''Iblessed 
tlie condition of dog and toad, because tliey had no soul 
to perish under tlie everlasting weiglit of hell." 

Nor do we see any inconsistency in the reasoning of 
Bloody Mary where she says : "As the souls of heretics 
are hereafter to be eternally burning in hell, there can 
be nothing more proper than for me to imitate tlie divine 
vengeance by burning them on earth." Not less brutal 
is the conception of God as entertained by Jonathan 
Edwards : "You cannot stand an instant before an in- 
furiated tiger even ; what, then, will you do Avhen God 
rushes agaiust you in all his wrath ?" 

Even children, such as the dear Master took in his 
arms and blessed, liave not esca])ed ecclesiastical venom. 
Here is the Milk for Babes which is furnished in a Lon- 
don tract : "Listen to the tremendous, the horrible up- 
roar of millions and millions and millions of tormented 
creatures, mad with the fury of hell. Oh, the screams 
of fear, the groan ings of horror, the yells of rage, the 
cries of pain, the shouts of agony, the shrieks of despair 
from millions on millions." 

It is not difficult to understand the cry of the Rev. 
Albert Barnes : "hi the distress and anguish of my own 
spirit, I confess I see not one ray to disclose to me the 
reason Avhy man should suffer to all eternity. I have 
never seen a particle ot* light thrown on these subjects 
that has given a moment's ease to my tortured mind. It 
is all dark — dark — to my soul, and I cannot disguise it." 

No one can respect God and John Calvin at the 
same moment. This teacher of infant damnation, this 
murderer, in a moral sense, of 3Iichael Servetus, having 
none of the tenderness of Albert Barnes, seems to gloat 
in saying : "ForcA er harassed with a dreadful tempest, 
they shall feel themselves torn asunder by an angry God, 



God. 23 

and transfixed and penetrated by mortal stings, terrified 
by the thunder-bolts of God, and broken by the weight 
of His hand, so that to sink into any gulfs would be 
more tolerable than to stand for a moment in these 
terrors." 

It will be answered that these men are dead (*as they 
ought to be) and should be let alone. But unfortunately 
their souls go marching on. Their dogmas still live. 
Come down to this day and generation. Spurgeon is a 
great sensation in the world's metropolis. He says : "In 
fire exactly like that wdiich we have on earth, thy body 
wdll lie, asbestos-like, forever unconsumed, all thy veins 
roads for the feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a 
string on which the devil shall forever play his diabolical 
tune of Hell's Unutterable Lament." 

In view of these quotations, which, after all, are 
simply representative of a great part of the world's liter- 
ature, is it not astonishing that any of love's tenderness 
still survives, and that any religion whatever is left? 
That men will continue to believe in a God in spite of 
all that has been said against him, is sufficient proof that 
there really is one. Theology is its own worst enemy. 
If it can endure itself, it ought to be able to endure any 
form of infidelity which it were possible to invent. 
"What Epicurus said three hundred years before Christ, 
is equally applicable to the Christian era. ''Not he is 
godless who rejects the gods of the crowd, but rather he 
who accepts them." 

In the old Saxon lang:uag;e, "ood" and "wod" are 
the same word ; but, as we have seen, in the later Saxon 
of Orthodox Christianity, they bear no resemblance. 

What has saved us from rankest Atheism ? Not 
creeds, but poesy. The muses have ever sung: 



24 Latest Interpretations. 

'^What dost thou fear? His wisdom reigns 

Supreme confessed; 
His power and love are infinite, 

So trust and rest." 

And to these words of Adelaide Proctor, Gurney 

adds : 

*'Yes, God is good; in earth and sky, 
From ocean depths and spreading wood, 

Ten thousand voices seem to cry, 

^God made us all, and God is good.' " 

While Robert Burns devoutly says to the Most 

High: 

*'Sure thou, Almighty, canst not act 
From cruelty or wrath." 

And Tennyson joins the chorus: 

**Ah, yet, I have had some glimmer at times, in my gloomiest woe, 
Of a God behind all — after all — the great God for aught that I 

know; 
But the God of love and of hell together they cannot be thought. 

And if there be such a God 
May this great God curse him and bring him to naught." 

And so we can all say with Josephine Pollard : 

'*I take the plummet of faith and strive 
The depths of God's love to divine, 

And I find that the weight goes down and down 
Below the length of the line." 

The old masters tried to put Deity on canvas, and 
succeeded in orlvingj us three bearded heads which were 
reverently called the Blessed Trinity. After all, it mat- 
ters little whether this work is attempted with brush or 
pen, pigments or speech, the result is the same, — a hydra- 
headed monstrosity. Try to grasp the thought that 
"God is the soul's inmost," and, "nearer to thee than 
thou art to thyself," for "in him we live and move and 
have our being." No one can think badly of God who 
thus discovers him. Alas for some of us, he is not too 



God. 25 

far away, but too near. "Those who live on Mount 
Athos do not see Mount Athos." 

Again, some have erred in supposing that God 
never comes to himself — is never conscious — except in 
the human mind. He is equally within and without. 
The universe is God. I am aware that this is Pantheism 
and that it has been anathematised. Yet I would that 
all men were Pantheists. Surely the universe is God in 
spite of the sneer of priest or the sting of prejudice. 
The mistake has been in regarding the universe as a body 
instead of a soal possessing a body. Man is not a body 
carrying a spirit, but a spirit carrying a body. So of the 
universe. The resemblance between Father and child is 
very close. 

There has been more humor m theology than any- 
where else. The idea of a God, mathematically limited 
by boundary lines, and being somewhere in the universe, 
just as "man's soul" is supposed to be located somewhere 
in the human organism — heart or head, nerves or blood 
— is sufficiently absurd ; but when we add to this the 
strange fancy that the Almighty is now upon a throne, 
and anon paying a flying visit to a camp meeting^, and 
again pausing to listen to a prayer which supplicates 
Mm to descend quickly, go speedily, come without delay, 
remain long, watch over certain affairs, or protect certain 
interests, the case becomes much more grotesque than 
-sublime. The colored boy answered naturally enough 
when asked by a pious revivalist if he had found the 
Lord : "Why, sir, I didn't know that the Lord was lost." 

Christians should begin the reformation of theology 
hy banishing Materialism from their conceptions of men. 
Why do we follow the human body to the grave as 
though we were following our beloved? Why do we 
cover the tomb with flowers as though we decked the 
brow of our precious one? Why do we consecrate the 



26 Latest Txterpretatioxs. 

cold clay of the cemetery? Why warm the heartless 
clods with our burning tears of affection? Where is he 
or she who went forth in the darkness of night ? Surely 
not in the dreary, uninhabited churchyard. Nothing in 
the nature of creation, or of men, or of angels would 
ever send or tempt one to abide there. Our dead are 
where love is, wliere we are. Where then shall we place 
the flowers? As near ourselves as possible. Where 
shall we shed our tears, made sweet with beautiful mem- 
ories ? Where but in our own beautiful homes. Where 
shall we look for our translated darlings? In the atmos- 
phere about us. AVhat atmosphere? Not the physical, 
but that of our own hearts, made pure, bright and clear 
by right living, firm trusting and spiritual longing. In 
this way also must we search after God. 

Phidias was remonstrated with for chiseling the 
backs of his statues with such painstaking care, since 
they were to be set against the wall where they would 
not be observed. ''But the gods will see them," replied 
the sculptor. Pliidias was a Pagan, but Christianity 
would be better if it could have a host of such Pagans. 
We polish with utmost nicety the side of our life that 
the world is to look at, while leaving all the other parts 
rough and ugly. Do we not herein evince a doubt that 
God is all where ? 

Not till 1774 did Priestley discover oxygen, yet man- 
kind had been constantlv breathino- it, and it was their 
life. How much more intimate than this, is the con- 
nection between the Universal Soul and man's existence. 
We breathe forever the Holy Spirit and know it not. It 
is m every molecule of blood, in every fiber of nerve 
and cell of brain, and yet we make ourselves into whited 
sepulchres. 

Commodore VandeH)ilt once said that he trusted 
Providence because ''Providence is as square as a brick." 



God. 27 

This was his peculiar way of saying tliat he had found 
God to be always right. You may not like tlie eoninier- 
eial phraseology in which the idea is clothed, but it is 
much better than the Trinitai'ian interpretation. It 
might be no bad plan to take the one from the creed and 
put the other in. The common hearer would be more 
likely to nndersiand just what is meant. 

How shall we pray to God? Naturally. 

Any set terms snch as, ''for Christ's sake," "in 
Christ's name," ''thine be the kingdom, the power and 
the glory," "amen," etc., none of wliich originally ap- 
pear in our Lord's prayer, need not be used, and should 
never be employed as mere forms. There is a rational 
interpretation which may be given to them, and, if 
given, there is no objection to repeating them as often as 
one's sonl can fill them with true meaning. 

In saying "for Christ's sake," we are not to think of 
him as a being of fiesh and blood who was crucified, l)ut 
as the representative of a great system of spirituality^ 
by which and through which we hope to attain to per- 
fection. While praying "in Christ's name," we should 
bear in mind that this signifies tliat we are not seeking 
the gifts of Mammon, but of the spirit concerning which 
Christ bore witness. 

If the saying of "Amen" had any effect in obtain- 
ing answers to prayer, the kingdom of God woidd have 
come and his will would have been done on earth as it 
is in Heaven, long ago; but the trouble is, the majority 
of those who use the word do not know what it nieanSy. 
and a majority of this majority do not care enough 
about it to inquire. Perhaps tliey think that God knows^ 
and that that is enough. Then let the whole prayer be 
still mumbled in Latin. Why have we made progress? 
It is no worse to address God in a dead lano'uat^e than it. 



28 Latest Ixterpketatioxs. 

is to take a livino- lano;iiao;e to the sacred altar and 
there murder it. 

Laying stress on det:iils is another fault which large- 
ly abounds in ])rayer service. Tliis will continue as 
long as Christians themselves magnify details. I like 
what General Grant said when told by a friend that 
many were praying for him: ''Yes," wrote the general, 
for he was too feeble to speak, "Catholics, Protestants, 
Jews and all the good people of the nation, of all poli- 
tics, and all religions, and all nationalities, have united in 
wishing or praying for my improvement. I am a great 
sufferer all the time, but the facts you have related are 
•compensation for much of it. All that 1 can do is to 
pray that the prayers of all these good people may be 
answered so far as to have us all meet in another and a 
better world." That was the best prayer of all — so 
broad and unselfish! It ascended above all flesh and the 
sufferings of flesh, above earth and the groanings of 
-earth. The other petitions were as good as sympathy 
<iould make them, but they lacked scope. It is compar- 
atively a very trifling thing that a General Grant should 
live or that he should die; but it is a supremely great 
thing whether or not all mankind are to be raised to a 
blessed immortality. 

In no sense sliould prayer be regarded as a substi- 
tute for human endeavor or foresight. Wendell Phillips 
wrote these significant lines in a young lady's autograph 
album: "After a day's weary march, Mahomet was 
camping with his followers. One of them said, 'I will 
loose my camel, and commit it to God.' 'Friend,' said 
the prophet, 'tie thy camel and commit it to God.' " 
Most people think it quite proper to commit their ill- 
health to the Almighty. It is their good health for 
which he asks. They go to the Lord in emergencies 
and forget him at all other times. They ask him to 



. God. 29^ 

come between tlie law of cause and effect so that they 
can avoid the consequences of their own blunders. 

Praying for temporalities is natural and proper 
enough for those who belong to the lowest plane of 
Christian life. Fjr ex:X]ii')le, to a^k for rain, 'rhose 
who do so are not supposed to understand that they are 
slyly hinting to Providence that human forethought has 
got the start of the divine; or that they are visiting the 
Most High with an insidious reprimand. Ir the sup- 
pliant simply means "I want a shower for my grass and 
might as well say so and free my mind as to keep think- 
ing about it," he is, to say the least, innocent enough. 
But the moment he pretends that his wants must re- 
solve themselves into God's purposes, he is slightly 
impious. 

The good people of Boston once begged "Father 
Wilson" of the First Church of that city to stop pray- 
ing for rain, because, since he began, some of the neigh- 
boring towns had been flooded. 

As one reaches the higher grades of Christian ex- 
perience, his worship concerns itself less with loaves and 
fishes and more with s])iritual principles. I liave no 
objection to childish praying, but, on the contrary, heart- 
ily commend it in its proper place, only let it be confined 
to children. But I do seriously object to that parental 
and priestly deception by which juvenile minds are 
made to believe that their prayers can be made the 
means of miraculously swaying the divine will and pleas- 
ure. "If you pray for a Christmas present, perhaps the 
Lord will send you one," says the pious mother to her 
little son. He accordingly prays for a rocking-horse. 
How much of the spirit of Christ, do you think, enters 
into the service? How much is he thereby advanced 
toward the kingdom of true righteousness? None what- 
ever. If the rocking-horse comes, the boy is fooled inta 



30 Latest Interpretations. 

supposing that his prayer lias, in some way, inoye«l t lie- 
great Miracle-Worker. When a child has been successful- 
ly fooled often enough he will, of course, become a fool. 

Prayer is the soul's atmosphere. It warms and 
beautifies, expands and fructifies, spiritualizes and puri- 
iies every soul wdiich truly engages in it. Those who 
^yant or expect more than this have never been thor- 
oughly Christianized. 

Says the eloquent Cbaj)in, "Each thing lives accord- 
ing to its kind; the heart by love, the intellect by truth, 
the higher nature of man by intimate communion wdth 
God." Let the higher nature prevail. Whenever it 
would approach the fountain of all life, let the lower 
nature be effectually suppressed. 

Lofty aspii-ation is answ^erable prayer. Mrs. Jame- 
son has beautifully said: "What w^e truly and earnestly 
aspire to be, that, in some sense, we are. The mere 
aspiration, by changing the frame of the mind, for the 
moment realizes itself." 

To cry out from the depths of the soul, "Oh, that I 
had wings like a dove," is the surest way to bring spirit- 
ual wings into existence. Darwin thinks the eagle got 
its wings because away back in the dim vista of the p'^st 
some earthbound creature had a longing to fly. If this 
be science, it is far better religion. Let us never forget 
to pray — childishly if still we must — but as men and 
Christians, if w^e can. 

Where shall the search for God be successfully 
made? He is everywhere, but it is not everywhere that 
he can be recognized. In our own inner life he awaits 
discovery. There, and there only w^ill he consent to 
manifest himself in his fullest glory and perfection. If 
then we would know him, whom to know aright is life 
eternal, we must not bind ourselves to externals. Scrip- 
ture itself must not be accepted too bodily. The letter 



God. 3 1 

killeth, while that which is between tlie lines giyeth life 
to the soul whose vision is clear. 

Let no one pretend that he has commnned with God 
unless his character is consistent with such high claim. 
Says Emerson: "You shall not enumerate your brilliant 
acquaintances, nor tell me by their titles what books 
you have read. I am to infer that you keep good com- 
pany by your better information and manners, and to 
infer your reading from the wealth and accuracy of your 
conversation." In proportion as we come to hear less, 
we shall see more of real Christianity. 

If our cup runneth over the world need not be in- 
formed of that fact by bell and crier. Let people see 
for themselves. 

'^ 'Tis not tlio deeds the loudest lauded 

That brightest shine; 
There's many a virtue un applauded, 

And yet divine. 

The outward show may be delusive, 

A cheating name; 
The inner spirit is conclusive 

Of worth or shame." 

When worldliness becomes the monopolist of human 
life, it is the bane of existence. Childish foolishness is 
funny enough, but when men and women are full grown 
their childishness ceases to be funny. For example, we 
laugh at the little fellow who still remained at the supper 
table notwithstanding all the family had been called out 
to witness a beautiful rainbow. "If God will let that 
rainbow stay there," said he, "till I get through supper, 
I will look at it." In what respect does this youth 
differ from the numerous adults who tell us that one 
world at a time is enough, and that if God has any 
other world he may keep it until they have finished with 
this when they will condescend to attend to that. 



32 Latest Interpretations. 

It may be necessary to look downward, or earth- 
ward, before looking upward, but it is not well to make 
that occupation our sole, or soul, business. It is wise to eat, 
drink and be merry, but if this is all we attach to exist- 
ence as we move along, what kind of a procession of 
animals are we? 

''There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath noth- 
ing; there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great 
riches." "The Lord weigheth the spirits." These Bible 
flowers are just as fresh and sweet as though they had 
been culled to-day instead of three thousand years ago. 

It thus appears that in respect to some things we 
can do no better than to humbly sit at the feet of the 
ancient Jews. They ought to have known something 
of God, for they elected him their political chieftain and 
for many years had no other acknowledged head to 
their government. In tiieir best moments — not in their 
worst — their poets, prophets or wise men came as close 
to the Most High as human nature can approach. But 
while acce])ting much of Jewish literature as being the 
medium of divine truth, is there any occasion for deny- 
ing equal inspiration to the longing souls of the nine- 
teenth century? No; just as the rain fills all the flowers 
whose cups are open, but leaves undeveloped buds to 
their own hardness and bitterness, so truth comes alike 
to all, but does not in all cases meet w^ith like reception. 
But the water which the bud rejects seeks the root of 
the plant, and there supplies the nurture, which, in due 
time, will reach and bless the blossom. 

Thus divine goodness will never take "no" for an 
answer. Turn from it today, it will come tomorrow; 
shut one avenue, it will seek another; for 
"Deep below, as high above, 
SweejDS the circle of God's love." 



EVIL. 



E y I L. 



I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create 
evil; I am the Lor J that doelh all these things. 

— Isaiah xlv: 7. 

Most Christians have tried to relieve tlie Almighty 
of a responsibility, which, according to Scripture, lie has 
clearly taken upon himself. Those who liave })retended 
to know all about divine plans and purposes, have told 
ns that it was not God who originated evil, but the devil. 
According to tliese ])hilosophers tlie creator made a "tree 
of the knoiclcdge of good and evil" before ever sucli a 
thing as evil existed. 

We h:ive heard a great deal said about the 'Mnystery 
of evil." As a matter of fact, evil is not one jot more 
mysterious than good is, or more so than is a drop of 
water or a grain of sand. Up to this present moment, 
everything which exists, human life particularly, is 
clothed with iniju^netrable mystery. Partially, however, 
and, in<leed, sufficiently for all practical purposes, many 
things can be explained; and^evii itself is one of these 
things. 

Just as the world is today, God, from the very be- 
ginning, knew it would be, and in that knowledge there 
was no tinge of wrath or disappointment. There has 
been no miscarriage of his designs. If he had his life to 
live over again, (if such an expression may be pardoned), 
he would not make the slightest change in the physi- 
cal or moral o;overnment of his universe. 



36 Latest Intkhpiiktaiions. 

Duke Ali)li<)iiso of Caslile liiul tlic ])r('f*uiii|)ti<)n to 
suppose tliat if \w had been ])reseiit when creation was 
framed, lie could have made some suggestions, which if 
followed, would have given us a much better world than 
we have. Wfc are glad the duke was not there. He 
could not have made a single alteration that would not 
have been mischievous. Perhaps he would have put no 
tem]>tation in the way of our first i)arents. Then he 
would have had the nice little jn'obleni to solve, how to 
get them out of their innocent babyhood. Adam and 
Eve were nothing but great, overgrown cliildren. What 
God was looking for, as a finality, was full, strong, com- 
prehensive manhood and woramhood. Continually bask- 
ing in the sun, or Ijing lazily under the trees, eating 
fruit, would never result in a higher condition than that 
of a contented animal. 

If our first parents had not been driven out of Par- 
adise, the time would have come when their posterity 
would have had to voluntarily migrate or be literally 
crowded to the wall. God told them to vacate their 
little corner lot and go out into the great world and shift 
for themselves. Hence, Europe was made possible, 
America was discovered, Boston teas founded, and we 
are here to praise the Lord for that infinite variety of 
opportunities and possibilities, physical, moral and spir- 
itual, concerning which Adam and Eve never so much 

as dreamed. 

As Crabbe says : 

" 'Tis well that man to all the varying states 

Of good and ill his mind accommodates." 

When one has thus learned to accommodate himself 

to circumstances, and to make the best of the inevitable, 

l,e has a flexibility of nature which will be of great value 

to him through time and through eternity. Discipline 



Evil. 37 

is the greatest good, and evil is its iniiiistcr. Willi Biy- 
aiit we can sing : 

^'These struggling tides of life, that see:.i, 

111 Avayward, endless course to tend, 
Are eddies of the mighty s'.ream 

That rolls to its apj^oinled end." 

That Sunday School boy, who had undoul.tcdly lived 
in numerous tenement houses, answered more \a isely 
than he knew, wlien the superintendent asked why Adam 
and Eve were driven out of Paradise. '^Because they 
could not pay the rent," was the prompt reply. True 
enough! Tlie compensation which one must pay for 
worthy and successful existence is a whole harvest of 
rich, ripe experiences. For such a harvest, a Xew En- 
gland sand-hill is better fitted than the hot, stoneless 
muck of an Asiatic garden. 

Perhaps it is true, as Menander says, that ^'AU ani- 
mals are more hap])y than men." But what is the quality 
of their liappiness V Is pigs' luxury desirable ? Pau- 
line shall answer : 

^'To be holy, just and true. 

Is more than to be happy; it is life. 

And it is written that man shall not live 

By bread alone, but by each living word 

Of God shall man live. Therefore, human soul. 

Though sorely tried, live out thy tired life truly, 

For God sees. Live worthily, and use thy grief 

And all the sharj) stones in thy pathway laid, 

To build a stairway, on whose rugged steps, 

Thy soul may mount toward the good and true, 

And gain its richest, noblest life through loss." 

If we must say with Pascal: '*Evil is easily discov- 
ered, there is an infinite variety ; good is almost unique ;" 
and with Rochefoucauld : "Present evils triumjDh over 
philosophy ;" and with Madame Swetchine : "There are 
times when it would seem as if God fished with a linCp 



38 Latest Intkkpketations. 

and the devil with a net ;" or with J^ailey : "Tlie best 
eiijoymeiil is h.df disa]>j)ointineiit to what w^e mean, or 
Avould have in this world;" or Avith Bishop Hall : ''That 
Avhich the Fi-eneh ])roverb hath of sickness is true of all 
evils, that they come on horseback and go away on foot;" 
or with liobertson : ''The truest definition of evil is 
that which represents it as something contrary to nature ;" 
or with Washington Irving : "With every exertion, the 
best of men can do but a moderate amount of good ; 
but it seems in the power of the most contemptible in- 
dividual to do incalculable mischief;" or with Figuier: 
"The ])resence of men on such or such parts of the earth, 
and the unequal distribution of evil on our globe, must 
remain unexi)lained ;" and w^ith Emerson : "We are al- 
w\ays balked of a complete success;" and with John 
Stuart Mill : "We may ask wdiy the human race should 
have been so constituted as to grovel in wretchedness 
and degradation for countless nges before a small portion 
of it was enabled to lift itself into the very imperfect 
state of intelligence, goodness and happiness w^hich we 
enjoy;" and wnth Ingersoll : "I w^ould make good health 
catching instead of disease;" if we must listen to these 
doleful sounds, wdiich, ])erha))S, AX)ice the sentiment of 
the thoughtless multitude, we will fly for relief to those 
blessed |)oets whose souls are more largely occupied with 
heaven's own revelations. Hear CoUett: 

"Through all the various shifting scene 

Of life's mistaken ill or good. 
Thy hand, O God! conducts unseen, 

The beautiful vicissitude." 

And Thompson : 

"We know that order shall appear 
AVhon God has made his purpose clear." 



Evil. 30 

And Holland : 

^'Evil is not a mystery, but a means 
Selected from the infinite resource 
To make the most of me." 

And Wordsworth : 

* 'Hushed be every thought that springs 
From out the bitterness of things." 

And Falconer : 

'' 'Tis ours on thine unerring laws to trust; 
With thee, great Lord, whatever is, is just." 

And Sargent : 

*'Evil shall boast not perpetuity." 

And Shakespeare : 

''There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
Would men observingly distill it out." 

And Adelaide Proctor: 

"I think if thou couldst know, 

soul that will complain, 
What lies concealed below 
Our burden and our pain — 
How just our anguish brings 
i^earer those longed-for things 
We seek for now in vain — 

1 think thou w^ouldst rejoice and not complain." 

Yet, in spite of all which horrible prose has declared, 
and inspired poesy denied, evil is unaccountable and 
diabolical as Avell as inconsistent with any worthy con- 
ception of God, if what is called evangelical theology is 
true ; for, in that case, evil has no appointed end, but 
must live to curse human souls through all eternity. Na 
wonder, therefore, that evil is generally regarded as an 
unsolvable mystery. ^Mysterious it would certainly be 
that God should have put an opponent into his universe 
or allowed one to come in whom he could not defeat. 
Perhaps the best thing ever said by Mr. Beecher is : "Evil 



40 Latest Interpretatioxs. 

is nothing in the workl but a })art of the divine system 
by which we are to be unfolded." 

It follows without saying that this rational sohition 
of the great problem has no place for a personal devil. 
His Satanic majesty is still retained, among the ignorant, 
for the i)urpose of frightening children out of their wits, 
— a purpose which, in too many instances, has been ful- 
filled to the letter — but, in proportion as philoeophy 
comes in, the horns, hoofs and tail of demonology vanish 
in the distance. 

There was once a sect called Satanians, who actually 
w^orshiped the devil ; and they w^ere quite consistent. 
Believing, with most Christians, that he is in a fair way 
to rule forever over a large majority of mankind, they 
thought him fairly entitled to a victor's honor. Martin 
Luther did not exactly Avorship him, but gave him a good 
stout recognition by throw^ing an ink-stand at his head. 

It is not long since two doctors of divinity seriously 
discussed the question. Is the Devil a Spirit? One of 
them thought, in the language of Coleridge, that he was 
a kind of ghost who roams around and 

"Sometimes comes down 

To visit his snug Utile farm, the earth, 

To see how his stock goes on." 

But the other inquired, "How shall w^e say that the 
devil is a spirit, since we are required to believe that 
God is a spirit ?" True enough! Could Jehovah and 
Satan have anything in common, especially their very 
substance ? To such straits are men driven wdien they 
would try to pick up an unreasonable dogma with the 
fingers of reason. 

The Miltonian idea is that the devil is a fallen angel. 
If we were to accept him at all, that would be the most 
reasonable conclusion. There was nothing else for him 



Evil. AV 

to fall from. All evil is the offs})riiig of good, and good 
is sufficiently able to take care of its own. Restoration 
is the office of all law and order. As surely as thistles 
are returned to their primitive elements, evil will return 
to its primitive condition. It is no further from an arch- 
angel to an arc'i-fiend, than it is from an arch-fiend to an 
arch-angel. The door between good and evil swings 
both ways. 

No legend is needed to explain how sin got into the 
world. It came naturally and will have a natural depar- 
ture. If it had come by miracle, it might have taken 
some su(;h miracle as the death and resurrection of a 
God-man to dispose of it. Pandora's box is opened 
every day. Man's God-given nature is the key that turns 
the lock. Key and lock were made on purpose to fit 
each other. 

Why should we blame Adam and Eve more than 
others. Tlie only reason that they sinned first is that 
they were made first. The reason we sin is not thjit we 
are children of the primal pair, but that we are men and 
women. Any being less perfect than the infinite God 
must necessarily be prone to errors, intellectual, moral 
and spiritual. If this were not so, perfection would have 
no advantage over imperfection. God made us imperfect 
for the very good reason that he could not dui)licate 
himself. There are such things as impossibilities. When 
we say that all things are possible with God, we do not 
believe, for a moment, that it would be possible for him 
to annihilate himself or to create a race of beings the 
equal of himself. 

Sni therefore is the natural result of our necessary 
limitations. Bad as it is, it hjis its compensations. Mo- 
liere well says: ''If all hearts were frank,' just and hon- 
est, tiie major part of the virtues would be useless to us." 



42 Latest Intekpketations. 

Let us honestly confess that we do not wish for such a 
state of things. If benevolence, charity, syni])athy and 
helpfulness enlarge, adoi-n and s])iritualize us, it is quite 
consistent to thank the i>*ood Lord for havino- arran^-ed 
human nature so that there is constant occasion for the 
exercise of these excellent qualities. 

It is pleasant to conteni])late that sin has no root of 
its own, — that it is the legitimate accompaniment of im- 
perfection and that it is the business of etei'nity to out- 
grow imperfection. 

Take in your hnnd a phrenological chart and note all 
the organs which inlicate character. Is there one organ 
too many ? Is there one tiiat could be spared without 
making' the man s»nu'tliing less? Is there one whose 
office is to do mischief? Is not every one indicative of 
good? In its practical application phrenology is not re- 
liable, but in its fundamental principles it is not only a 
true science but a most emphatic protest against the 
doctrine of natural depravity. 

Sinfulness is always the abuse of the virtues. It can 
have no other source. What is cowardice but overgrown 
cautiousness ? What are gluttony and drunkenness but 
the too great exercise of necessary alimentiveness ? 
What is avarice but an improper enlargement of frugal- 
ity ? What was the first biblical sin but a reckless a])pli- 
cation of a divinely implanted desire — that of obtaining 
knowledge ? 

If, now, we have succeeded in understanding the 
origin and nature of sin, it becomes our solemn duty to 
consider its consequences, both immediate and final. 

Its immediate consequences are best taught by ob- 
servation. Experience is too expensive. Does the sin 
of envy or jealousy prompt us to injure a rival? Let us 
remember the fate of the jealous Grecian. When a 



Evil. 43 

statue had been erected to Tliengeues of Tlinsos, on ac- 
count of bis many victories in tbe ])ubUc games, it so 
strongly excited the liatred of one of bis rivals that be 
went to it every night that he might tlirow it down by 
repeated blows. At last, unfortunately successful, he 
was able to move it from its pedestal, wbeu he himself 
w^as crushed beneath its fall. Morally speaking, this is 
what happens every day. No man can try to injure an- 
other without inflicting the greatest wrong upon himself. 
Not Christ, but his persecutors, were most hurt. 

That there is any real pleasure in committing sin, is 
the most pernicious su])erstition vrith Avhich moralists 
are called upon to deal. The Greek word signifying 
wickedness comes from another Greek word signifying 
labor. Oh, how the heart must labor when sin enters I 
It is the eclipse of the soul. How heavy the shadows! 
How cold the atmosphere ! Birds cease singing and 
flowers close their petals on that dreadful day. 

"Oh, no;" says one; "you have told us that sin is a 
necessity, securing to mankind the greatest moral per- 
fection. If so, we will take our fill." So is dirt a neces- 
sity. Sweep it off the earth and where would be our 
next year's harvest ? Must we therefore set ourselves 
up as dirt-eiters? Everything has its proper place. 
Some things belong in our heads, some in omy hearts, and 
others under our heels. Each has its appointed mission. 

We make sin our good when we make it our dead- 
liest foe. We put it to a ])roper use by overcoming it. 
Great souls feed on great victories. If the case is re- 
versed, if man is vanquished and sin triumphant, it be- 
comes a most cruel tyrant. 

In one short moment, many a man or woman has 
sinned away the greater part of life's happiness. In the 
still hours of the niofht, what unavailino- tears have been 



44 Latest Interpretations. 

shed because once when sin knocked at the door, we an- 
swered impulsively, "Come in !" With smiling face the 
visitor accepted the thoughtless invitation, and came — to 
stay. If a father was to punish his child as sin punishes 
its victim, he would be arrested for inhuman conduct. 
If man was to beat horse or dog as sin beats an immor- 
tal soul, the stern rn uiilate ot law would be laid heavily 
upon him through the Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Animals. Yet, strange to say, we scarcely 
utter a protest when we see earth's children scourged 
from morn till night by a most heartless monster. 

Beware! The spirit of man can endure hardship, 
want, loss of friends, or any guiltless misfortune, with- 
out injury. But it cannot assinailate sin and retain the 
sweet essence of life. 

Platinum is a very valuable metal. Its excessive re- 
sistance to heat makes it quite useful in the arts and 
sciences. A temperature that will melt down fire-clay 
and cause steel to run like water has no effect upon it. 
Put a platinum wire no larger than a hair into the blast 
furnace, where stones would turn to tiuid, and it comes 
out as unharmed as though it had been in the ice-chest. 
How like a fire-proof soul is this. Alas, it is not fire- 
proof ! Put a bit of lead into the crucible with the pla- 
tinum, and both metals melt together and the crucible is 
destroyed. How aptly this may illustrate the effects of 
sin. From day to day we are constantly building up 
character with such metals as the moral world affords. 
Let each metal be tried by the builder of life's temple, 
that it may be rejected in case it fails to have the true 
ring. Even gold, with its power to withstand the strong- 
est acids, finds its destructive enemy in one of the com- 
mon commodities of our every day use. Sin, and sin 
only, is the corroding substance of human character. 



Evil. 45 

Shun little sins. Big ones have no individuality. 
They are simply accumulations. The trouble with the 
world is not dirt, but dust. Mountains are made of 
dirt, but dust settles upon our faces and garments as 
well as upon our household gods. To keep everything 
clean is religion. To keep one's self "unspotted from 
the world" is to deal lieroically with one's little faults 
and vices, and this is biblical Christianity, "pure and 
undefiled," without dogma or creed or any of the thirty- 
nine — or the thousand and thirty-nine — articles, which 
men have been tortured into believing. 

Nor is it sufficient to ply the duster on the fronts of 
furniture and goods, while the hidden parts are shame- 
fully neglected. Washington Allston was once on his 
way to a banquet with a friend, when he suddenly stopped 
and exclaimed, "I have just discovered a rent in my 
clothing and must return and have it repaired." "But," 
said the other, "it is out of sight wdiere nobody will 
know of it." "I shall know of it," insisted Allston, 
"and that is enough ;" and he refused to attend the party 
until his garments were put in order. 

If the raiment of the soul as well as that of the 
body were made subject to public inspection, how many 
people there are who would turn back on their way to 
church, to take a iew stitches, put on a few patches and 
fix up generally. Possibly they would feel obliged to do 
a whole day's washing and a week's bleaching before re- 
newing their walk to the sanctuary. Fortunately for 
the outward prosperity of churches, the robes of the 
heart are not as conspicuous as one's coat collar or one's 
bonnet strings. Still, every one knows just how one's 
self is spiritually dressed, and self commendation or con- 
demnation ought to be quite sufficient to decide one's 
comfort or discomfort. 



46 Latest IxTERrRETATiONS. 

It is to be feared that some 2^^<^1>1g succeed, in a 
measure, in concealing themselves from themselves. 
They do not desire to look fairly, deliberately and stead- 
ily at their own souls. "I never did like that last child 
of mine," exclaimed a negro woman, pointing to a little 
fellow who was almost white, '4ie shows dirt too easy." 
It is a sad day when one comes to dislike his own soul 
for a similar reason. Certain it is that God made it of 
the purest white. 

There has recently been a strange demand among 
society people for antique articles — the older and uglier 
the better. A merchant in Paris, finding that the de- 
mand was greater than his supply, started a factory and 
eno^ao^ed in the thrivini>: business of makino; modern 
things look ancient. The more cracked and battered 
and damaged he could cause a vase to appear, the more 
money he could obtain for it. A strange enterprise I 
Where is there anything resembling it ? Here, at home 
and everywhere. What are the saloons doing? Taking^ 
human nature as God made it, fresh, bright and beauti- 
ful, and causing it to look old before its time. Intem- 
perance, dissipation and vice make sad havoc of the di- 
vine vase, in which are the gifts of heaven. 

So much for the immediate effects of sin. Is it 
strange that superficial judges should have believed and 
taught that the consequences of wrong-doing can never 
be eradicated ? The strange thing is that since wrong- 
doing is so calamitous, it has not been made the real ob- 
ject of attack by all good Christians. Instead of this, 
all the stress has been given to belief and profession* 
Good moral men have been often told from the pul])it 
that their morality would count for nothing, and worse 
than nothing, at the judgment day, unless accompanied 
by a certificate from an evangelical church. 



Evil. 4^ 

The muddiest stream wliieli earth affords needs only 
sufficient distance to become clear water. The river of 
each human life stretches into eternity. Tlie channel is 
divine on either side, while the bright sun of heaven 
never ceases to exert its purifying influence. Say not 
that forever and forever a stream may flow o'er the rocks^ 
of eternal truth without losing the ships, some frail and 
others the stoutest that diabolical ingenuity could in- 
vent, which today it carries upon its surface. 

Sin is endowed with fearful power and remarkable 
longevity, but the one thing with which by no possibility 
it can be endowed is eternal life. He who proclaims, ''I, 
the Lord, create evil," puts none of himself into it. It 
came. It must go. It was not in the beginning. It 
shall not be in the end. 

If a man looks into past eternity and declares that 
evil is as old as God, he is called a heretic, an infidel or 
a blasphemer ; but if he looks into the future and de- 
clares that evil ^hall endure as long as God, he is called 
a good. Orthodox Christian. Strange, is it not, that the 
mere turning around to look the other w^ay should pro- 
duce such a wonderful change in one's theological status? 
If we believe in Christ at all, let us believe in Christ- 
ly conclusions. When the good Lord had said "Come, 
now, and let us reason together," he immediately added : 
"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as 
snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as;- 
wool." 

And the poet replied : 

"Though dark our present prospects be, 

And sorrows 'round us dwell, 
Yet hope doth whisper to the soul 
That all shall issue well." 

Again Jehovah spoke : "I have sworn by myself, the 
word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and 



48 Latest Interpretations. 

shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, 

every tongue shall swear, surely shall say, 'In the Lord 

have I righteousness and strength ; even to him shall 

men come ; and all that are incensed against him shall 
be ashamed.' " 

And the poet answered: 

*^So at the loom of life we weave 
Our separate shreds, that varying fall, 

Some stained, some lair; and parsing, leave 
To God the gathering up of all, 

In that full pattern, wherein man 
Works blindly out the e:ernal plan." 

The holy prophet gave this assui-ance : ''They also 
that erred in spirit shall come to un lerstanding, and they 
that murmured shall learn docti'ine." 

While the songster chanted : 

"Thy ways, O Lord, with wise design, 
Are framed upon thy throne above, 

And every dark and bending line 
Meets in the centre of thy love. 

With feeble light and half obscure, 

Poor mortals thine arrangements view; 

Ko^ knowing that the least are sure, 
And the mysterious just and true." 

Then the voice of the seer rang out upon the mid- 
night of evil : "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, 
that it cannot save ; neither his ear heavy that it cannot 
hear." 

To which the full chorus of earth's muses gave 
sweet response : 

"Dear are all the hopes we cherish. 

All the memories we keep; 
Joy and sorrow are twin-sisters; 

We are happy wliile we weep. 
Almost there, we still draw nearer. 

Thought and prayer and hope ai-e free. 
They shall triuiiiph as Grod liveth, — 

Every 'might have been' shall bcP- 



CHRIST. 



C II R I S T. 



Know ye not as to your own selves that Jesus Christ is in you ? 

— 2nd Cor. xiii:5. 

The Bible presents Christ to us, sometimes as an his- 
torical person, and again, as an eternal impersonality, 
representing truth, love and righteousness. It is clearly 
in this latter sense that he is employed in the text. That 
Christ, as a person, could be in all his folloAvers is too 
absurd for a moment's consideration. 

Wherever m the wide world two or three of his 
disciples are met together, there is the impersonal Word, 
or Logos, which was in the beginning with God, and by 
which all things were made. When it is said that 
"Christ is head over all things to the church, which is 
his body," we must entirely forget his personality and 
remember only the system of eternal principles which it 
IS the duty of the church to maintain ; for that the 
church is literally the body of Christ no sane person 
could believe. 

Again, when Jesus asks us to eat his flesh and drink 
his blood, he has reference not to himself, but to the 
eternal facts and truths by which souls are nourished. 

The historical Christ was human. The essential 
Christ is divine. Christ as a Saviour is impersonal. No 
person can save another person, although any person 
may assist another to work out his own salvation. 

If we pray in Christ's name it should be in that of 
the impersonal Christ ; and if we ask to be saved for his 
sake, the same principle should apply. Truth — the truth 
which Jesus taught — is as much more important than 



C.2 l^ATliST TnTERPRKTATIONS. 

Jesus hiiusolf, as he was of more importaiwe than a grain 

of saiifl. 

The historv of Christ as a person is— simply history. 
Mi'U liave lia<1 iio more oeeasioii for tlie use of miracu- 
lous intervention in writing biograj.hies, than for keep- 
incr their commercial acconnts. It is a queer supposition 
that the Almi-htv on<-e attended to the recording of 
births marriaoos and deaths, as well as the journeyings, 
sayini and doings of a few persons, while ever since 
then lie has left mankind to write its own most important 
documents, even its religious ereeds— and what a muss 

has been made of it. 

The historv and chronology of the Bible are as hu- 
man as its grammar and rhetoric. All these branches 
are tan-ht in the common schools at cheap rates. Dr. 
Adam Clarke candidly says: "Saint Matthew took up 
the gcnealocries just as he found them in the public Jew- 
ish n-cords, which, though they were in the main correct, 
yet were deficient in many particulars." Perhaps the 
miraculous conception of Jesus is one of the "mr.ny par- 
ticulars" in which the writers of the Bible have mani- 
fested their fallibility. Certain it is that this wonderful 
storv has tlie s.ame color and tone as that which charac- 
terizes much of ancient literature. All great men of the 
old Gentile world were sons of the gods. Isaac Wise, 
the Christian historian, says : "There is no great man in 
historv whose birth is not surrounded with mostextrava. 
gant stories, announcing to the world that a great event 

has taken place." i v ;i 

Julius Ciesar learned when young and always believed 
that he was the descendant of Anchises and Yeims. 
Jupiter had no human father. According to tradition 
Eliiah had no earthly parentage. Saint Paul describes 
Melchizedek as "without father, without mother, with- 
out genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end 



Chkist. oS 

of life, but made like unto tlie Son of (iod/' Tlieolo- 
gians have applied common sen^>e interpretations to 
Paul's language, in order that there might be only 
one Miraculous Conception. 

Jesus himself seems not to have made Ids origin a 
matter of sufficient consequence to mention, wldle li's 
mother, speaking to him of herself and Joseph, says: 
''Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing." 
In several instances, Jesus is spoken of as the son of Jo- 
seph, but he does not seem to regard the mistake, if it 
be one, as requiring any correction. Another strange 
inconsistency consists in giving the genealogy of Christ 
through Joseph, and leaving that of Mary unmentioned. 
It would look as though Joseph received much more 
favor in his day and generation than he has ever received 
since. True, he himself had a dream, touching the 
miraculous origin of Jesus ; but perhaps Ecclesiasticus 
is as good authority on this subject as any one. He 
says : "Whoso regardeth dreams is Ukc him that catcheth 
at a shadow and followeth after the wind." 

It is enough for all the demands of faith to say that 
the Christ-princii^le had no human origin. The essential 
Christ is the son of God. The true title of the historical 
Jesus, that which he gives himself, is. Son of Man. Un- 
doubtedly the Christ-principle has been recognized, more 
or less, in all ages and in all nations. Christna, the 
demigod, or Christ, of the Hindoos, whose advent is es- 
timated by Sir William Jones at 900 years before Christ, 
has a history somewhat like that ot' our own Christ, 
especially as to the mir.iculous conception. 

We proceed, therefore, to regard Ciirist as a man, 
whom it behooved in all things, ''to be made like unto 
his brethren." This is the Bible view. Even in the 
great work of bringing life and immortality to light he 



54 Latest Intkri^retations. 

is human : "For since by man came deatli, by man came 
also tlie resurrection of the dead." 

As a miracle-worker, he is also man: ''Ye men of 
Israel, liear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man ap- 
proved of God among you by miracles and wonders and 
signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye 
yourselves also know." 

As a mediator, he holds his place in the ranks of 
maidvind : "For there is one God and one mediator be- 
tween God and men, the man Christ Jesus." 

Asa judge, he is simi)ly human; God hath "ap- 
pointed a day in the which he will judge the world in 
righteousness by that num w^hom he hath ordained." 

The difference between him and ourselves is one of 
degree, not kind; for "when he shall ap])ear we shall be 
like unto him." "For as many as are led by the spirit 
of God, they are the sons of God." 

The relationship Avhich he sustained to his Father is 
the same as that which may exist between God and other 
men. For he says : "Holy Father, keep through thine 
ow^n name those whom thou hast given me, that they 
may be one as ice areP 

"Yes," it will be said, "Christ was a man, but he 
was also God." Pre])Osterous ! In the primitive Chris- 
tian church, no such claim was asserted, while many, 
including the Carj^ocrations, Ebiov.ites and Cerinthians, 
taught that the birth of Christ did not differ from that 
of other human beings ; while such po})ular fathers as 
Eusebius, Justin and Tertullian declare that it is absurd 
to imagine the uncreated and unchangeable nature of 
Almighty God taking the form of a m;in. 

Jesus himself is sufficiently clear in his refusal to 
appropriate the title and office of God. When he says: 
"I do nothing of myself, but as the Father hath taught 



Christ. 55 

me, I speak tliese things, " he disclauns all principal- 
ship. When he says : "I am glad for your sakes that I 
was not there," he diselainis onimipresence. In saying : 
"Of mine own self I can do nothing" he disclaims om- 
nipotence. In counseling : "Call not thou me good ; 
there is none good but one, that is God," he disclaims 
spiritual perfection. In declaring : "My Father is 
greater than I," he disclaims divine equality. In a word, 
he says the very tilings concerning himself, which others 
have since said about him, and for the saying of which 
have been burned at the stake by Orthodox Christians. 

In these days there is a kind of liberal evangelical- 
ism, which is nothing but a cross betAveen Calvinism, or 
Arminianisin, and a what-is-it, a compromise which dis- 
honors both its parents, which seems to regard Christ as 
neither one thing nor another. Ask it to sing the hymn 
of good old Dr. Watts : 

"Well might the sun in darkness hide 

And shut his glories in ; 
When God the Mighty Maker died, 

For man, the creature's, sin : — 

and it complains that it has forgotten the tune. Even 
when 

''I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all. 
But Jesus Christ is my all in all,'' — 

is called for, this liberal Orthodox hybrid complains of a 
cold in the head, or a soreness in tlie throat which neces- 
sitates keeping the mouth shut. On the other hand, 
this mongrel offspring of musty creed and modern 
thought refuses to sing with Lowe : 

''They may be right who say 'tis best 

To let the mystic Jesus rest, 

The Jesus whom men deified. 

The God who wept and bled and died; 



56 Latest Interpretations. 

But him, our gracious human friend, 

We'll keep till time itself shall end; 

That sacred and beloved face 

Shall never vanish from our race." 
But better thiiigs are to be ex])ected of our Ortho- 
dox neiglibors as sooii as they pass the somewhat peril- 
ous and exceedingly trying period of their metamorpho- 
sis. This successfully accomplished, they will find in 
Christ's humanity, assisted, as it was, by the spirit of 
God, even as any humanity may be assisted, all that is 
necessary for their daily comfort and final deliverance. 
The claim of Jesus is that he was sanctified of God. 
What higher claim is needed in explaining all that Christ 
was and all that he did ? Let any man so live as to be 
sanctified of God, and he need not be God in order to 
live a ^odly life. How much encouragement there is in 
the thought that "all may do what has by man been 
done." If Jesus was not only a man, but something be- 
sides, it is useless for us to try to imitate him. Indeed, 
we lose our respect for him just in proportion as he is 
presented to us as an indefinite quantity or an indefina- 
ble quality. We can admire a beautiful fish and love a 
noble woman, but the moment the two are united in the 
form of a mermaid, the result is repulsive to our finer 
taste and better nature. A Christ classified is a Christ 
comj^rehensible. 

We can easily understand why tlie believers in the 
total depravity of man have been anxious to set Christ 
above humanity ; but are there not good Christians to- 
day in all denominations who are convinced that in 
every man there is a divine portion ? What can be bet- 
ter in kind than this divine portion? Was it possible 
for Jesus himself to have had anything superior? 

Emerson said a good thing: "I am glad to hear each 
sect complain that they do not now hold the oi)inions 



Christ. 57 

they are charged with. The eartli moves and the mhul 
opens. I am ghid to believe society contains a class of 
humble souls, Avho enjoy the luxur}' of a religion that 
does not degrade ; who think it the highest worship to 
expect of Heaven the most and best ; who do not won- 
der that there was a Christ, but that there were not a 
thousand; who have conceived an infinite hope for man^ 
kind ; who believe that the history of Jesus is the his- 
tory of every man, written large." 

No man, when truly himself, ever rejected the real 
Christ. Men have rejected the history, creed or opinion 
which claimed to set forth Christ, and this they had, and 
still have, a perfect right to do. We do not forget that 
the Bible speaks of him repeatedly as the Son of God. 
and that 

''There is a question for all below, 
Mighty in import for weal or woe ; 
Question for childhood on bended knee, 
Question of faith and futurity. 
Answer it, ere thou shalt feel the rod, — 
'Dost thou believe on the Son of God?' " 

Certainly, we reply; but what has this belief to da 
with the deity of Jesus? What has it to do with the 
doctrine of tlie Trinity, Avhich is not a Christian doc- 
trine at all, ha\dng been anciently promulgated, in one 
form or another, in Persia, Hindoostan, Egypt, Greece, 
Japan, China, and among some of our American aborigi- 
nes ? But what does it mean where Christ is mentioned 
as God's only begotten son? It means that rhetoric it^ 
self seeks to do him honor. The title is one of respect 
rather than description. Ephraim is called God's first- 
born. David is mentioned as God's begotten son. In 
respect to these persons, reason is allowed to explain 
language ; but when it comes to Christ, words are sup^ 



58 Latest Ixtekprktations 

posed to be greater than reason, so that Mieliael Wig- 
gleswortli is neither the first nor hist to say: 

"1 am a fool, 
And have adventured 
To play the fool this once for Christ, 
The more his fame to spread." 

The fact is, tlie exaggerated literatnre of commer- 
cial advertising seems to iiave been adopted by tlie advo- 
cates of him who was the very personification of humil- 
ity. Not tlie truest, but tlie largest statements have 
been most popular. We must go to unevangelical au- 
thors for the most genuine sincerity. It does us more 
good to hear Thomas Paine say that "the morality which 
Christ taught has not been exceeded by any," than to 
hear the entire Young Men's Christian Association de- 
clare that they believe Christ could make a mountain 
walk into the sea. 

But how can he be our judge, it will be asked, un- 
less he is super-human? He is our judge by comparison. 
When Plato puts his verses beside those of Homer, his 
own production is condemned and rejected. It is said 
that where the electric light has been introduced, the 
consumption of gas is increased rather than diminished ; 
the explanation being that the flame of electricity is so 
much more brilliant than that of gas, that the latter 
pales by comparison to such an extent as to give rise to 
a demand for more jets. 

Thus, the Light of the World becomes the high 
standard by which we judge all the lesser lights in the 
kingdom of morals. Christ, instead of God, occupies 
the seat of judgment, because we compare like with like, 
finite with finite. Painting is judged by ])ainting, not by 
singing, ploughing or running. The merits or demerits 
of anything are known to us only by placing things of 
like nature and possibilities in juxtaposition. 



Christ. 59 

How pained my evmigelical brother will be at the 
very thouglit of having Christ bronglit down to the level 
of common man. But hold ! That is not the thought 
to be for one moment entertained. But this is it : The 
common man may lise to the level of Christ. J^e?ins de 
Medici may be the best piece of statuary e\er executed; 
but, becHuse it is statuary and nothing more, every sculp- 
tor in the world may hope to equal it. Jenny Lind's 
bird song may be the finest production in music ; but 
because it is not super-human, the field is left open to all 
competitors. So, Jesus is possessed of a very large spirit, 
but that which is peculiar to him as an individual, must 
be sought for in the word "large," not in the word "spirit." 
The moment you remove him from the grasp of man's 
possible attainments, you have robbed the world of its 
best friend. With this robbeiy the self-styled Orthodox 
churches are justly chargeable. Not the Unitarians, but 
the Trinitarians, have denied the real Savior. 

Chi-istianity can never be overestimated, "Neither is 
there salvation in any other; for there " is none other 
name under heaven given among men whereby w^e must 
be saved." Tiie only reason why the name of Christ is 
always em|)]oyed in the Bible instead of that of Chris- 
tianity, is that when the Scriptures were written there 
was no such word as Christianity. It stands to reason 
that it is through Christianity, not through a name, whicii, 
in reality, is only a combination of human letters, that 
we are saved. How plainly is this set forth in Christ's 
own words : "Not eveiy one that saith unto me. Lord, 
Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he 
that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." 
In other Avords, it is not the name of Christ but the 
2')ractice of Christianity that rescues the soul from evil. 

The world has had quite enough of Christology, but 



60 Latest Interpretations. 

altogether too little of Christianity. The one is imprac- 
ticable, the other practicable. A moment's examination 
of Christology — that is, the doctrines concerning a per- 
sonal Christ — is sufficient to show that the whole system 
rests on a falsehood. It starts with the assumption that 
Adam's sin incurred infinite wrath, and merited infinite 
penalty. Whatever followed that false premise had to 
partake of the character of the premise itself. Logically, 
nothing could satisfy infinite justice but the sufferings of 
an infinite being. Logically, it was either necessary to 
abandon the Garden of Eden allegory or to put in the 
claim that Christ is God. In these latter days the 
Garden of Eden story has been essentially abandoned, 
while the belief in a God-Christ goes on by mere force 
of momentum. It should occur to all thoughtful men 
that inasmuch as the narrow plank of Adam's fall and 
consequent total depravity has nearly crumbled to pieces, 
it is about time to take down the top-heavy structure 
which is built thereon. 

What is the modern idea of the sin of our first par- 
ents ? That it was perfectly natural. What then is 
needed but natural remedies? Why should Jesus be 
other than a natural being? What occasion is there for 
his occupying a position of unique exclusiveness, and 
belonging to no particular class, s})ecies, or family, either 
human or divine ? Is God's glory enhanced by supposmg 
that an unlooked-for emergency arose only a few days 
after he had pronounced all his works "very good," and 
that there was no way out of the difficulty but to provide 
a system of miracles in which everybody must believe, 
in order to be sa\ed ? Must we Ml)ply to the moral world 
the queer philosophy of the student in Les Miserahles^ 
who argues that the rat is one of God's mistakes, to cor- 
rect which the cat was made ? 



Christ. 61 

Christology has robbed God of liis spotless and in- 
effable robes, in order that Jesus might be the more ex- 
travagnntly adorned. Millions have died giving all 
glory to Christ, reposing all faith in him, while the uni- 
versal Father was honored with scarcely a passing 
thought. If God was praised or thanked at all, it was 
only for his "unspeakable goodness in sending his Only 
Begotten Son into the world." A very doubtful compli- 
ment to the Most High ! Christology presents its Lord 
in so much better light than that in which theology pre- 
sents the Almighty, that I do not wonder that the great 
world has turned from the angry frown of the one to the 
kindly smile of the other. But let us return unto God 
and humbly crave his pardon for ever having been per- 
suaded to think ill of him. We have wronged his infi- 
nite goodness. 

To some extent, the Christology of popular accept- 
ation is positively demoralizing. It assumes that Christ 
pays the sinner's just debt. What would be the effect 
on a city government if it could depend on the state to 
pay all the debts which the board of aldermen might 
contract, the only condition being that the board should 
believe in the state? Yea, in order to make it a parallel 
case, we must suppose that the city is made to think that 
all the debts which it may have contracted, or may yet 
contract, are already provided for by the state, on the 
condition before mentioned. "You may keep the change," 
remarked the attorney who had been fined two dollars 
for abusing the court, as he handed the clerk a ten dollar 
bill. "I shall probably have occasion to swear at the judge 
again." The privilege '-of profanity having been thus 
paid for, it was no doubt exercised to the full extent. In 
the interest of good morals it should be distinctly under- 
stood that Christ is, in no sense, another person's debt- 



62 Latest I>.TKiiriu:TATJONs. 

payer. He never once mentioned Aclani, and it is not 
likely, therefore, that he regarded himself as tlie ''receiv- 
er" of Adam's baid<:nipt stock. 

Salvation rests upon no one's i)ersonal merit except 
one's own. Tlie rules which are desi<>ned to povern our 
civil service reform, are quite likely to prove imi)racticable 
in the administration of tlie nation, yet, nevertheless^ 
they are the eternal rules to which the moral universe 
must submit. If a democrat is not entitled to a post- 
office on the ground that a democrat has been elected to 
the presidential chair, neither is a man entitled to salva- 
tion for having advocated the cause of a personal Christ. 
Is the democrat ?^(9r^Ay.^ Will he make a yooc? office- 
holder? Is the follower of Christ worthy, in and of 
himself, to grace the walks of Heaven? Even as civil 
service reform would prefer a capable and trustworthy 
man of opposite politics, to an incapable and unfit man 
who might have the same politics as the administration, 
so the government of the spiritual world will save an 
honest heathen or unbeliever much sooner than it will 
an unfaithful Christian, however firm may be tlie lat- 
ter's belief in Christology. 

Another consideration, generally overlooked, is that 
if Christ was God, or more than man, he is not entitled 
to as much credit for his noble life as should otherwise 
be given. If he be the infinite God, his experiences on 
earth, so far as recorded in the New Testament, shrink 
into comparatively insignificant proportions. History 
reveals to us only three years of active ministry, cov- 
ering not one tenth part of his earthly existence. Aside 
from the short sermon on the mount and the very brief 
model prayer, how little of his preaching or praying has 
come down to us. A few scraps of conversation and 
some scattered fragmentary incidents are all that have 



Christ. GB 

been preserved. Even his "miraeles" Inive disappeared 
from the latest version of the New Testament, and a 
small number of signs and Avonders are all that are left. 
What a meagre record for a God-man. True, accord ing" 
to the extravagant fancy of John, the world itself could 
not contain the books that should record all that the 
Savior said and did, but it is fair to presume that what 
has not been preserved was not deemed essential to the 
needs of mankind. 

Yet enough, and more than enough, has come down 
to lis to reflect undying honor on Jesus Christ as a man. 
If what he did was the work of a God, Ave can only say^ 
as so many did when the late Mr. Yanderbilt gave half 
a million dollars to a benevolent purpose, "It is nothing 
for him, he can amply afford it." According to Christ's 
own rule, no gift Avhich comes from superabundant 
wealth is deserving of any respect as compared with the 
Avidow^'s mite. By this rule we estimate the merit of 
Christ himself. If he Avas only a man, he is deserving of 
our eternal gratitude for having revealed to ns the possi^ 
bilities of the human soul. If he AA^as more than a man,, 
w^e have no means of judging Avhether he did his best or 
not. With the poets Ave can join in saying : 

^'Was Christ a man like us? 
Ah, let us try if we tlien, too, 
Can be sucli men as he." 

''Ye different sects who all declare, 
Lol Christ is here, and Christ is there, 
Your stronger proofs divinely give, 
And sliow me wliere tlie Ciiristians live." 

"From science and creed tlie liglit goes out, 

Tlie saintly fact survives, 
The blessed Master none can doubt, 
Revealed in saintly lives." 
When Christ is thus generally regarded, it Avill be 



<64 Latest Ixterprp:tations. 

impossible for any one to join with Voltaire in exclaim- 
ing : ''I pray yon let me never hear that man's name 
again." Wiierever the name is rightly employed, such 
bitterness of heart can never result. When a good name 
becomes associated with horrible doctrines it must sufi'er 
accordingly, for, like people, it is known by the company 
it keeps. In this respect, even the name of Christ has 
not been spared, as may be illustrated by a little incident. 
A "smart" boy was boasting what he would do to another 
boy who had wronged him. "You must be like Christ," 
said the Trinitarian father ; "he never did any harm to 
his enemies." "Yes, but he's going to," answered the 
wrathful boy. How did the pious parent meet that 
jDoint? By embarrassing silence, I suppose. 

After all, Christology is but the aurora borealis of a 
winter's night, while Christianity is the sun that warms, 
beautifies and fructifies the earth . 

In Florence tliere is a painting b}' Angiolo Bronzino, 
which represents Christ as having descended into hell. 
The condemned by whom he is surrounded wear a coun- 
tenance indicative of hope and joy. One little child is 
just stretching out his hand to another who is lower 
down. How true to life ! Christ — the Christ spirit — 
daily descends into hell, and the evidence of his presence 
is always the same, — one person helping another, the 
banishment of despair and the assertion of hope. 

Christ is the light of the world ; but let us not mis- 
apprehend this truth. Suppose I were to invite you 
into a wonderful cave where all the gems of earth might 
be seen in glorious perfection. What folly it would be, 
if, when there, you should s])end all your time in 
admiring the light by which tlie treasure is revealed, and 
pay very little attention to the ti*easure itself. 



CHRISTIANITY. 



CHKI8TIAMTY. 



AiilI there is iimcli rubbish; so that Ave are not able to 
buiU the wall. — Xehemi.ih iv :10. 

8i)iritiial Christianity is older than thj Son ot' 
David, aiid broader than historical Christendom. So 
far as it is of God, it is the nniversal religion. If any 
creed undertakes to confine it within arbitrary bonds, wo 
have only to say to that creed, "Hold I You were born 
yesterday, and are nothing but a swaddiing infant in 
the great arms of Father Time." '^That was the ti'ue 
Light which lightetli every man that conieth into the 
workl," wliether lie was born today or ten thousand 
years ago, and whetlier he hails from Jerusalem or from 
Honokilu. True, there is no 2^^i*f^<-*t Christianity *ii 
heathen countries; neither is there any which is perfect 
in our own country. The difference is one of degree; 
and so it will always remain until "that wliich is perfect 
is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." 
It is not one person alone, but all humanity wliich de- 
clares: "When I Avas a child I spake as a child, I under- 
stood as a child ; but when I became a man, I put away 
childish things." Pagans are humanity's children. 
Christianity loves children. "God reigneth over the 
heathen," says the Psalmist. If that be so, the heathen 
are already under Christian rule, and fortunately need 
not wait for our churches to take up a collection and 
send a missionary to them. It is a favorite expression 
Avith many that God Avas in Christ. Let us turn it 
around and see if it is not as long one Avay as the other. 
Christ is in God. God's Avhole nature is imbued Avith 



68 Latest Intkkprktations 

C'ln-istianitv; liow, then, can he ''reioii over the lieatlieii," 
or any other peo])le, without l)ringing them in contact 
witli Cliristian influences? Hence we find, just what we 
wouhl naturally expect to find, tliat there are people in 
this woild, who, never having heard of Christ, liave 
somehow ])ecome lai'gely possessed of his blessed doc- 
trines. 

If we can instruct Pagans, we are merely paying 
them back some of the things which we received from 
them in ancient times. In coming from Egy])t, tlie 
children of Israel brought with them considerable 
Egyi)tian morality. The Old Testament abounds with 
it. Even the ten commandments are not original with 
Moses. Why should this statement grate harshly upon 
Christian ears? If the Egyptians w^ere descendants of 
Noah, and if Noah communed with God, why should 
not Noah's posterity know something about the divine 
will and pleasure? Why are we so jealous of Ham and 
Japheth as to insist that Shem w^as the only one in Noah's 
family whose descendants received any favor from Jeho- 
vah? 

After a while, the children of Israel were carried 
captive to Babylon, where they came in contact with 
some more of Noah's descendants, and obtained some 
additional ideas which Avere afterwards added to Juda- 
ism. Finally, the whole system, gathered from all the 
world around, was employed as the foundation of Christ- 
ianity. Then Paul began to mingle with Grecians, 
Athenians and Corinthians, nntil they, too, contributed 
through him to the general structure of the Christian 
religion. In due time, the Roman empire adopted 
Christianity, but not without coloring it with all the 
superstitions of mythology. When, at last, Rome was 
overi'un by the savage hordes of the North, they brought 



Christianity. G9 

then* own predjudicos arul convictions, and engrafted 
tliem upon Christian faith. 

From Avhat source has not Christianity drawn? It 
is a stream wliose channel may be traced tlirough Egypt- 
ian, Hebrew, Persian, Grecian, Ivoman, and Scandina- 
vian fields of thought and worship. Historically consid- 
ered therefore, Christianity is the most complete religion 
on earth. But not until we leave its history and regard it 
as the universal, spiritual religion, do we begin to know 
it in all its worth and gloiy. 

Koeppen estimates the worshij)ers of Buddha at 
about one third the entire population of the globe. 
They largely outnumber the Christians. Is the Heaven- 
ly Father so indifferent to their spiritual interests as to 
cle23end on nothing but a few Christian mission^aries to 
lead them into the paths of salvation? An Anglican 
clergyman, Mr. Baring Gould, bears witness that "the 
ethic code of Buddha can scarcely be ranked lower 
than that of Christianity." Must we Christians be so 
conceited as to suppose that, if any people in the wide 
world are in possession of aay of God's truth, they 
must have got it directly or indirectly from Christ? 
He himself made no such claim. He was simply a 
"witness". Let no one supjDOse that this degrades him 
to an inferior office. The spirit which actuated him is 
eloquently described in the language of Mrs. M. C» 
Pratt : 

^'Oli, to stand foremost in truth's great ranks, 

And, with burning words, to move 
The hearts of nations to know the worth 

Of God's unclianging love!" 
Max Muller gives us a valuable paragraph from 
that eminent father in the church, Saint Augustine, as 
follow^s: "That wdiich is now^ called the Christian reli- 
gion existed among the ancients, and never did not exist. 



'0 La t j<: s j' In j' j : n i 'iik t a t i o x s . 

from the planting of the Innnnn raco until CJirist camo 
in tlio iiesh, at which time the truo religion, Avliicli 
already subsisted, began to l>e called Cliristianity." 
WJiat Kobert Soiithey says is in direct line witli this 
argiinient : 

'•Cliiklren we are all 
Of one great Feather, in whatever clime 
Jlis providence lialli cast the seed of life, 
All tongues, all colours: neither after death 
Shall we be sorted into languages 
And tints— white, black, and tawny, Greek and Goth, 
Northmen, and offspring of hot Africa; 
The all-seeing Father— He in whom we live and move- 
lie, the impartial judge of all, regards 
Nations, and hues, and dialects, alike; 
According to their works shall they be judged. 
When even-handed justice in the scale 
Tlieir goo:l and evil weighs." 

If we Christians expect to be blessed AvJiile the 
heathen are counted out, we reckon without our host. 
The yevy exi)ectation reveals as mean a streak within us 
as any that may be found among Pagans. There w\as 
once a narrow minded, ])ious man — such a combination 
ii"(Mjuently exists — who owned a slave in partnership 
with another man, and his ])rayer used to be that the 
good Lord v.ould protect his half of the slave, l?omi)ey. 
The Almighty could vouchsafe this partial i)rotection 
w^ithout meddling with the other half of Pomi)ey, just as 
well as he coal I s ivesijui:^ Cnrlsti.m nations, wlule leav- 
ing the rest of humanity to go to destruction. 

''Like warp and woof, all destinies 

Are woven fist. 
Linked in sympathy l.ke tlie keys 

Of an or.Lian vast. 
Pluck one thread, au.l the web ye mar. 

Break bu: one 
Of a thousmd keys and the uaining jar 

Through all will run.'' 



Chkistiaxitv. 71 

*'Xotliing in this world is single. 

All things, by a law divine, 
In one another's being mingle.'- 

'•'Mind cannot mind despise — it is itself." 

^'All made in the likeness of the One, 

All children of one ransom. 
In whatever hour, in whatever part of the eai'th 

We draw this vital air. 
We are brothers; we are bound by one compact.'" 

The heathen are what they are, by the limitations 
of our Christian oro^anizations, which, of course, reflects 
no discredit upon them, and should subject them to no 
condemnation. The word heathen, from lieath, reminds 
us that the early church went only to the cities, and left 
out the heath, or country. That was a compliment to 
the country. God knew whom he could trust. Pao-an 
has a similar origin. It comes from a word meaning 
villager. The small villages were not visited by Paul 
or his associates, and hence did not become organized 
into Christian flocks. How much divine wrath and 
human bitterness we have associated with these two 
words, which, after all, had a very respectable birth. 

Why are we so slow in erecting the great temple of 
spiritual Christianity? Because ''there is much rubbish, 
so that we are not able to build the wall." This rubbish 
consists of dogmatism, accusation, arraignment, super- 
stition, bigotry, priestcraft, arrogance and hypocrisy, 
besides skepticism, animalism and materialism. That 
true Christianity has not been entirely buried and ever- 
lastingly lost sight of, is suflicient evidence of its fitness 
to everlastingly survive. Its enemies have been the 
world, the flesh and the creeds. I^ever yet has it been 
put to a good, square test on its merits alone. AVe have 



72 Latest Ixtkkpketations. 

been always dealing with its props — just as tliougli an 
universal religion was in need of props. Why do we 
not try to put props under the sun to keep it from fall- 
ing? Why not brace up the stars? What is all this 
dogmatism for, but an effort of theologians, fearfully 
and wonderfully made, to sustain something which, in 
in its very nature, is indestructible? And the mischief 
of it is that the thing which is of eternal worth is fre- 
quently overlooked, while all energy is applied to sus- 
taining the dogmatism. For example, baptism was 
once regarded as an aid to something; but afterwards it 
came to be looked at as the thing itself which was to 
save the soul. We cannot blame the world for finding 
something to laugh at in this despatch from Frankfort, 
Ky. : "At eleven o'clock this morning, thirty-three con- 
victs, converted by evangelist Barnes, until the requisite 
nmnher of guards armed with Spencer rifles^ passed out 
of the penitentiary gate in two large wagons, destined 
for the wharf. Arriving there. Rev. Mr. Thorp, chap- 
lain of the prison, administered to the convicts the rite 
of baptism." Many a convict, because of his accepting 
the so-called ^j^rop^ of Christianity, has been accounted a 
saint — and then hung ; while the saints, who had some- 
how escaped being hung, joined heartily in singing the 
popular hymn: 

^^The blood is a fount 

Where the vilest may go, 
And wash till their souls 
Are whiter than snow." 

The singing finished, a i)ortion of the West- 
minster profession of faith might be repeated, as follows : 
"The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice 
of himself, w^hich he, through the eternal spirit, offered 
up unto God, has fully satisfied the justice of his Father, 



Christianity. 7B 

:\iid purchased, not only reconciliation, but an everlast- 
ino' inheritance in the kino-dom of heaven for all those 
whom the Father hatli given unto him." 

Dr. Adam Clarke, the Methodist commentator, 
might next be invited to give his views on the atone- 
ment. In commenting on Col. i: 14, he speaks of Christ 
as one "who has paid down the redemption price, even 
his own blood, that our sins might be cancelled." Bro. 
Moody might now be asked to give one of his stirring 
addresses — the one, for example, where this illustration 
occurs: "Eat of the Lamb. That is the food of the 
soul. So, my friends, if you want to know that you are 
saved, be sure you are behind the blood. Snppose I 
want to go to I^ew York. I go down to the depot and 
buy my ticket. The conductor comes along and 1 hold 
out my ticket and he looks at it. He wouldn't care who 
I was, whether I was a black man or a white man. He 
just looks at the ticket. So God looks for our ticket. 
If we are behind the blood, let us show our colors and 
we are all right. ^ ^ ^ Suppose I have been running 
up a bill at some store upon Washington street. And I 
go down there and say, 'I want to pay my bill,' and the 
shop-keeper says, 'Somebody has been here and paid 
your bill,' I am justified. The account is settled. I 
have nothing more to do with it." 

Rev. E. P. Hammond, another evangelical revivalist, 
might continue the meeting by relating the story he has 
so often told, about the two children who lost their little 
white lamb and didn't know where to find it. At last, 
they traced it to a cruel butcher, who was about to take 
its life in spite of the agonizing grief of the children, 
when a benevolent gentleman appeared on the scene and 
purchased the lamb of the gruff butcher and returned it 
to its grateful owners. "Thus," says Mr. Hammond^ 



74 Latkst Intkrprktatioxs. 

^'Clii'ist paid tlu' ])rice of our release and saved us by his 
blood." Nice theology! Of course the illustration 
wholly fails unless the mercenary and heartless butcher 
stands in the place of the Almighty. 

At this point the pent-up emotions of the congrega- 
tion might be relieved by a little more singing; for 
example : 

^'Nothing, either great or small, 

Nothing, sinner, no I 
Jesus did it — did it all, 

Long, long ago. 
Weary working, burdened one. 

Wherefore toil you so? 
Cease your doing, all was done 
Long, long a2:o." 

The meeting might now be closed with prayer, and 
I can think of nothing more a])p]-opriate than an extract 
from President Finney's devotions: "O Lord, we so 
abominate ourselves that we could spit in our faces and 
kick ourselves into hell." 

So much for the "rubbish" of Christianity. Let us 
return unto the Scriptures and see wdiat they will tell us 
of its universal principles. Saint Paul w^as broader than 
all sectarianism, and higher than all dogmatism, when, 
\vith holy fervor,he uttered the noble w^ords: "Finally, 
brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things 
are honorable, whatsoever things are just, Avhatsoever 
things are pure, wdiatsoever things are lovely, wdiatso- 
ever things are of good i-eport; if there be any virtue, 
and if there be any praise, think on these things." 

Life, not dogma, is the kind of Christianity which 
the gospel delights to emphasize. "What doth it |)rotit, 
my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and have 
not works? Can faith save him?" Is belief any jjar- 
ticular virtue? "The devils also believe." When Christ 



Chrtstiaxity. 75 

had sunnned u]) "all the law and all the pro])lR4s" and 
liad liung them on jnst two eonimandnients, belief was 
3iot mentioned as one of them. True Christianity, 
therefore, must show itself at the fingers' ends. "Yes," 
said the innocent small boy in answer to an inquiry, 
^'my pa is a Chi-istian, but he hasn't worked at it much 
lately." Little was he aware how large a i)art of man- 
kind he w^as thus describing. 

The elimination of the homely practicability of 
every-day life from the "scheme of salvation" has been 
productive of a whole harvest of evil consequences. 
Rev. Hyatt Smith says that he once received a letter 
^exhorting him to be perfect, and that "the Avriter folded 
it into a newspaper, Avrapped it so that the manuscri])t 
vcould not be seen, and then i)ut a one-cent stamp on it. 
That man wrote six pages on 'sinless perfection,' and 
then cheated the government out of two cents." Per- 
haps he thought of the hymn already alluded to, and 
concluded that "Jesus paid it all." 

In a cl lurch at Rome, opened every Christmas, there 
is the figure of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Christ. 
The little one is made of wax and adorned with rings 
of real gold and genuine jewels. To this place come 
j^ious devotees, and before this image repeat their sol- 
emn ])i'ayers. This is Christianity of a certain sort. 
•Come with me to the Illinois state prison. It is after 
the great fire which devastated a large part of Chicago. 
A collection is taken up among the convicts for the suf- 
ferers, and a large and generous contribution is the re- 
sult. This, too, is Christianity, but of another sort. 
Which is the truest type of the Master's teaching? 

Another contrast : On the 26th of December of 
each year a certain church is opened to celebrate the 
-death of the martvrs. A strong- lio-ht is made to fall 



76 Latest Interpketations. 

upon tlie pietuivs wliicli ])ortray their deatli, and every 
feature is brought out in liorrible detail. Turn now 
from this scene to another: It is that of a woman borne 
down by a multitude of cares. All day she answers to 
the call of duty; no neighbor is forgotten, no obliga- 
tion neglected, and no amount of drudgery or hardship 
spurned. At night her sleep is banished and rest broken 
by the cry of a sick child. Patiently and bvingly she 
nurses it through the Aveary liours. What cordial is 
this she administers to it? Something the doctor has 
left? Ah, no, it is her very life. In the morning she 
rises with unstrung nerves and aching head to resume 
uncomplainingly, and perhaps without the inspiration of 
a sympathetic word or one look of encouragement, the 
too familiar round of oft-repeated labor. But one day 
she does not arise from her couch at the usual time. She 
feels so tired, she says, and must rest a little longer. 
Alas! it is a long, long rest. The messenger of Death 
speedily says, "Your work is finished." — 
"Earth's but a sorry tent 
Pitclied for a few frail days, 
A short-leased tenement. — " 
Now follows a funeral assembly, some commonplace 
remarks, a brief prayer, the final leave-taking, the clos- 
ing of the grave, a few flowers on the upheaved earth, a 
modest stone, and then — a world's foi-getfulness. Yet 
in the sight of God here is a nobler martyr than any 
whose faces are on the walls of the sanctuary. Here 
was a Christianity that lived, loved, labored and suffered, 
and is now risen to the life everlasting. The ancient 
martyrs of ecclesiastical repute have been enormously 
overestimated. In some measure,' they were simply ob- 
stinate and vainglorious. To satisfy a kind of theologi- 
cal ambition they were willing to commit suicide on 
condition that it should be done by the hands of an 



Christianity. 77 

executioner and called by a different name. There 
were hundreds of contemporaries with the martyrs who 
believed just as the martyrs did, but because they were 
peaceably inclined, reasonably tolerant and good tem- 
pered, nobody thought of killing them, — hence they are 
now unhonored on earth, but remembered in heaven. 
To live and bear burdens, to love and not complain, to 
be patient with our opponents, and to do our best with 
human nature as it is, requires more courage, and far 
more real Christianity than it would to follow the exam- 
ple of the ancient fire-eaters. 

Titus Vespasian used to say that he would rather per- 
ish himself than to be the ruin of another. If he really 
meant what he said he was entitled to as beautiful a crown 
as any that martyrs ever wore, or that Christianity ever pic- 
tured. Tiie selfish person's counterfeit affection, which may 
thus be expressed, '-This m m can be ol: use to me, thnv^fore 
I will love him," has been too often given to Christ and 
<called by the sacred name of Christianity. A poet once 
lost his soul in rapturous verse, all about a frog which 
made its home on a tiny island completely covered with 
beautiful flowers, and which could not be induced to 
forsake the spot. Now, in plain prose, this aesthetic re])- 
tile (I refer to the frog, not the poet) was attracted to 
the bower of blossoms, for the simple reason that he 
could catch more insects there than anywhere else. 
Are there any frogs in the Christian church? Do they 
seek its loveliness for loveliness' sake, or do tliey imagine 
that there are certain advantages to be obtained there 
which might not be so easy of access elsewhere ? Eagles 
ily high, not that they may enjoy the most wholesome 
air that heaven affords, but that they may have* the 
widest possible range for sighting their prey. 

True Christianity seeks to cast out all deo-radino- 



78 Latest Intkhprktai ions. 

selfishness from liumnii nature. It offers no reward as 
an inducement for right-doing, otlier than nobility of 
soul. We should rid ourselves once for all of the sugar- 
])luni theory of salvation. A mother says to her child, 
"If you will be a good boy during my absence I will 
bring you some candy." The boy endeavors to meet 
tlie requirments of the case by the smallest ])ossible ex- 
])enditure of virtue. Perhaps the mother threatens to 
visit him with pretty severe punisliment in case he doej> 
not behave. His prayer will then be similar to the one 
which a little girl was heard to utter: "O Lord, make 
me a good child , not too good, but just good enough so 
that I won't have to be whipped." 

What God says to every one of his childreji is es- 
sentially this: "Sweetmeats or no sweetmeats, do right t 
liell or no hell, shun the wrong." Wh:itever is added to 
this i)romotes an unw^orthy greed for rewards or a cow- 
ardly fear of ])unishment. I am very little concerned 
al)out what the future may have in store ior me, but it 
concerns me much to know what I have in store for the- 
future. There is an Oriental legend of a believer who 
was met one day bearing a torch in one hand and a 
pitcher of w ater in the other. On being questioned, he 
replied : "With this fire I go to burn up the ])alaces of 
heaven, and with this water to quench the fiames oi 
hell, so that men hereafter may worship God truly and 
no longer serve him for ho])e or for fear." That's 
Christianity. 

If the word Christianity were to be lost, and we 
were compelled to find a sul;stitute, where should we 
look for it V We might adopt the name of Christ as^ 
having the same me:ining, thus following the example of 
the Gospel writers, but, as we have already seen, it is- 
difficult in this ])ractical age to employ a personal noui£ 



Christiaxity. 79 

for an impersonal thing without attaching personality to 
it, thus leading to confusion of ideas. There is ab- 
solutely no word in the language of man that is worthy 
for a single moment to take the place of Christianity. 
It has a depth of meaning, and a suggestiveness of 
blessed spirituality which no other term can fully ex- 
press. It represents the final religion. It involves the 
conceptions of universal love, eternal progression and 
abiding usefulness. Under its banner he who is most 
useful is most illustrious. As an individual, no one is/ 
worth saving. It is only in relationship to the great 
brotherhood of man that he rises to importance. What 
is his value ? What is his service ? The two questions 
are one. 

The human soul is not a cistern to be tilled, but a 
living fountain to furnish supplies. The more freely it 
is used the more abundantly it is increased. All around 
it are the fields that need watering, but the fountahi is 
all-sufficient because its sufficiency is not of itself, but of 
God. 

Again, human life may be compared to a river. 
Some men represent the middle of the stream, which 
seems bent on nothing but to get to the ocean just as 
swiftly as possible. They are the theoretical Christians 
whose chief concern it is to save their souls and avoid 
friction. Other men represent the edges of the stream, 
wdiich do the most practical good to the land through 
which the river flows. They are what the Avorld needs — 
shore Christians who find their way to the very places 
where God's children live. 

There are underground rivers. They, too, reach 
the ocean, but in the darkness and chill of unbroken 
night. How suggestive they are of those human lives 



80 Latest Interpretations. 

whose pathway is unmarked by aught of sunlight or 
beauty. 

From the time of Adam until now it has been 
Heaven's effort to lift humanity up to a higher plane of 
existence. From now on, and until time itself shall be 
lost in the full light of eternity, every true Christian is 
called upon to join heartily in the same grand endeavor. 
''Lift a little! do thy best! 

Many they who need thine aid; 
Many lying on the wayside, 

'Neath misfortune's dreary shade: 
Pass not by, like priest and Levite, 

Heedless of thy fellow man. 
But with heart and hand extended 
Be the good Samaritan.'' 



SELFHOOD 



SELlilOOD. 



What is mail, that thou art iniiiclful of liiiii? 

— Psahiis viii : 4. 

This important question is variously answered. 
Those who aecept the Andover Creed must say, "I be- 
lieve ^ ^ =^ ^ that by nature every man is personally de- 
praved, destitute of lioliness, unlike and opposL'd to 
God." In the Shorter Catechism for Young Children 
(the shorter the better) this is the kind of pulj) adminis- 
tei'ed : 

Question : "What kind of a heart have you by na- 
ture ?" 

Axswer: "A heart filled with all unrighteous- 
ness." 

QuKSTiox: "Does your wicked heart make all your 
thouglits, words and actions sinf id ?" 

AxswER ; "A^es ; I do nothing but sin." 

A B:iptist catechism (no wonder the children cry for 
a kittychism) serves up the doctrine of its church in this 
style : "All mankind, by their fall, lost communion with 
God, are under his Avrath and curse and so made lialjle to 
all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and to the 
pains of hell forever." Bishop Beveridge says : "I can- 
not pray but I sin ; I cannot hear or ])reach a sermon 
but I sin ; I cannot give an alms or receive the sacra- 
ment, but I sin." And I think the bisliop is perfectly 
right about it, especially concerning his hearing and 
preaching seianons. It is certainly sinful to either hear 
or preach tlie khid of discourses whicli are based 



84 Latest Tntkkpkm: tattons. 

on the hisliop's tlieoiogy. The Bislioj) of Toron- 
to has this to say: "Every cliild of hiinianity, ex- 
cept the Virgin Mary, is fi'oin the first moment of con- 
ception, a cliihl of wrath, hated by the blessed Trinity, 
belonging to Satan, and doomed to helL" 

After reading- a few j)ages of this sort, we are ])re- 
pared to agree witli Alfrcrl Tennyson : 

'•There lives more faith in lionest doubt, 
Believe ine, tlian in half the creeds/' 

No one conld more pointedly sum np the effect of 
the dogma under consideration than has been done by J. 
G. Holland : 

''O faithfully did old parson Flynn 
Preach to his flock of original sin ; 
And his flock took care to practice well 
The tenet which of'- from the pulpit fell ; 
And said, ^The leaso of all must know 
The fountain has a riglit to flow.' " 

In turning from the heartless creeds of men to the 
soul-breathings of the poets, it is like coming suddenly 
from an ice-chest into the full glory of a summer garden. 

Hear Robert Nicoll : 
^'God doth nor, man despise. 
He gives him soul, mind, lieart, that living flame; 
Nurse it, and upwards let it h rightly rise 
To heaven, from whence it came.'' 

And James Russell Lowell : 

^'AU that hatli been majestical 
In life or death, since time began, 
Is native in the simple heart of all, 
The angel heart of man." 

And John Fletcher : 
''O man, th3u imi^e of the Maker's good, 
What can'st thou fear when breatlied into thy blood 
His spirit is, that built thee? What dull sense 
Makes thee suspect, in need, that Providence?" 



Selfhood. 85 

And William Byrd : 

•'My mind to me a knig\lom is; 
Such perfect joy therein 1 tind 
As far exceeds all earthly bliss 

That God or natm-e hath assigned." 

And Ella Caldwell : 

''Judge not I .Judge not! The erring heart, 
Though dimmed and stained by sin — 
Though lost to ev^ry good without — 
Has God's pure light within." 

And John G. Whittier : 

''Through all disguise, form, place or name, 
Beueath the flaunting robes of sin, 
ThroTigh poverty and squalid shame, 
Thou lookest on the man within. 
''On man, as man, retaining yet. 

How' er debased, and soiled, and dim. 
The crown upon his forehead set — 
The immortal gift of God to him." 

Here then, is the strong contrast between creeds 
and poetry. Both liave attempted to answer the in- 
quiry of the 2)sahiiist as recorded in our text. It will 
take but a moment to decide wdiich set of answers bears 
closest resemblance to tlie sj^irit of Christ. Man is some- 
what divine, and in fully realizing this, he will be in- 
spired to nobler deeds and purer living. Too much 
stress cannot be given to selfho;)d. To think well of self 
is to honor the Author of self. We use the term self- 
hood, because it is a Avord rarely em])loyed, and hence 
has not been subjected to so mucli abuse and misapplica- 
tion as the word selfishness. Of true selfishness there 
is too little rather than t;)j iuuch in human nature. Ev- 
erything desirable or undesirable may be discovered in 
one's self. The day of judgment, the book of lite, the 
recording angel and the great white throne, are all thei'e. 
Heaven or hell is also there, it is there th.il sin is com- 



86 Latkst Interpkktatioxs. 

iiiitted or vii-tiie ijraetieod, and it is tliere, and there only, 

tliat it will be dealt with. 

Now tlie better we think of ourselves, the better 

opinions we shall have of God. Who can believe in the 

infinite wratli of the Almighty, while accepting the 

beautiful sentiment of Mrs. Barbauld : 

'*Is there not 
A tongue in every star that talks with man, 
And woos him to be wise? nor woos in vain: 
This dead of midnijiht is the noon of thought, 
And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars. 
At this still hour the self collected soul 
Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there 
Of high descent, and more than mortal rank: 
An embryo god, a spark of fire divine, 
Which must burn on for ages, when the sun 
(Fair transitory creature of a day) 
Has closed his golden age, and, wrapt in shades. 
Forgets his wonted journey through the east.'' 

And who can doubt the operation and final fruitage 
of God's love wliile joining with John Bowring in say- 
ing : 

"There is, in every human heart. 
Some not completely barren part. 
Where seeds of love and truth might grow, 
Aiul flowers of geneious virtue blow; 
To plant, to watch, to water there, — 
This be our duty — this our care I'' 

Surely if it be man's duty to plant and water in the 
neglected human soul, it would ill become God to stand 
by and do notliing but curse that soul, either in time or 
in eternity ! 

The most weather-beaten vessel on the ocean can- 
not be legally seized as a wreck so long as any living an- 
imal may be found thereon. This is maratime law, but 
it illustrates good theology. Something alive may be 
discovered in the saddest wreck tliat drifts and tosses on 



Selfhood. 87 

the great liumaii sea. If it were not so, wlierefore came 
the Gospel to sinners? Unless there is something in ev- 
ery man to which truth can successfully appeal, why 
does infinite wisdom waste time in making the attempt? 
The sclieme of salvation, as set forth by evangelical 
churches, is one of the curiosities which will cause our 
posterity to smile. Here it is : First, every man in his 
natural state is spiritually dead. Second, in order to 
come to life he must take the medicine labeled "Faith in 
Christ." The picture of a dead man helping himself to 
medicine is really amusing. "Until you are converted," 
says the evangelical church, "you are utterly incapable 
of any good thing;" but in order to be rescued from 
this condition, you must do the very good thing of acce^^t- 
ing the Holy Spirit and believing in the Savior. Let 
us put thisremarkable theory into another picture : A man 
has fallen down stairs and broken both legs and both arms. 
At tlie head of the stairs stands a good fat doctor of di- 
vinity, solemn as an owl, and says to the poor cripple : 
'-'^Comehere^ and I'll pick you up." Isn't it funny? The 
church which teaches such an inconsistenc^y may well 
sing : 

"And are we wretches still alive, 

And do we yet rebel?" 
Unfortunately, yes; too many of you are still alive 
and are constantly participating in a wicked rebellion 
against what is divine in human nature. Be converted. 
Then can you sing the better song: 

''In all there is an inner depth — 
A far-off secret way, 

Where through dim windows of the soul, 
God sends his smiling ray. 

In every human heart there is 
A faithful sounding chord, 

That may be struck unknown to us, 
By some sweet, loving word; 



88 Latkst Intekprktatio^'S. 

The wayward heart in vain may try, 
Its softer thoughts to hide. 

Some unexpected tone reveals 
It has its angel side." 
Says George Gilfillaii : "Our own soul is the uru 
wliieli si)riiikles beauty iij)on the universe." Do you 
object that tliis is transcendental, sentimental, visionary 
and impracticable? It is not. On the contrary, noth- 
ing could be more stubbornly practical. To believe 
fully in one's self is to occupy the vantage ground where 
one can move the world. It gives to one that necessary 
confidence which converts a comj^aratively uneducated 
man, like Saul of Tarsus, into a prominent factor in hu- 
man progress. A French author happily remarks: "The 
great are great only because we are on our knees; let us 
rise." 

It is estimated that there are six hundred million 
ganglion globules in the human brain. What a reser- 
voir of lightning! What a fagot of thunderbolts I 
Suppose the entire six hundred million were fully 
equip23ed and under marching orders. What an irresist- 
ible army! How it could batter and demolish the 
strongest forts of evil! How rich we are in latent force ! 
]>ut alas, because it is simply latent, the world is none 
the richer for what we possess. We mourn the daily 
loss of earth's dynamic activity. Gladly would we fill 
Niagara's rushing torrent with water wheels, that w^e 
might convert its w^asted power into electricity by which 
to light, a continent. We would stud the mountains 
with w^indmills and rob the spendthrift tempest of its 
force that it might ])e hitched to our levers, Avheels and 
spindles. We would arrest the mighty tides while they 
ebl) and flow, so that the power which they are reckless- 
ly squandering could be utilized in our machine shops. 
Oh yes; we would gather u]) all of natui-e's fragments, 



Selfhood. S9 

that nothing be lost, wliile the grandest t'oree in creation, 
tliat wliich is generated of the six lumdred million gan- 
glion globnles in the human brain, that Avhieh can be 
made to serve the best interest of the immortal soul, is^ 
largely unused or wofully misused. 

Theodore Parker in one of his sermons describes an 
ancient temple in which there was a collossal statue of a 
man so large that, even as it sat crouching, its head 
reached to the roof of the temple, while its gigan- 
tic arms, as they lay folded by its side, touched the 
Avails of the room. "Such," said he, "is the position of 
man in the churches of today. Were he to rise up the 
roof would be destroyed; were he to extend his massive 
arms, the walls of the temple would be demolished.*' 
"Better that he should remain as he is, then," will be 
the verdict of the pious, thoughtless thousands. Better 
that human reason should be loaded with chains and 
bolted to a granite floor than that the church in which 
our fathers obtained their comfort should have one stone 
removed I Xo; a thousand times, no. Man is greater 
by divine right than any church. In his actual practice, 
however, the meanest church on earth is too great for 
him. He limits himself to a narrow closet, while stately 
halls and endless corridors await the echoes of his tread 
and the music of his voice. He is like the wealthy 
woman who recently died. Having been an invalid for 
many years she had never visited one half the rooms in 
her palatial residence. 

When you was a child your parents doled out your 
allowance of sugar, fruit, bread and milk, while it was 
the great desire of your heart to help yourself. Well, 
the time has come when you can help yourself. Do you 
api^reciate the high privilege ? God's table is always set, 
the feast is always spread, your place is always reserved, 



DO Latp:st Interpretations. 

mn\ it* you do not su])])ly your soul with the clioicest 
fruits of j)araclise, tlie fault is your own. 

Great as man is by nature, he clings while he should 
stand. AVomen do not like to be called vines; but men 
also are vines. We lean against the dami) wall of cus- 
tom, botli in social and religious life, until we almost 
take our death of cold. If the wall were to bo suddenly 
taken away we should fall to the ground I'ealizing our 
utter lack of self-dependence. Hammel is right: "An 
ounce of custom outweighs a ton of reason." 

Because men have not depended on their own rea- 
son, they have often accepted other people's errors as 
gospel truth. They have read the Bible through other 
people's eyes. We should remember that when the 
Scriptures were prepared there was published no list of 
errata, such as we have in modern books, and of which 
this is frequently given as a specimen : ''For dum squiz- 
zle, read permanent." Now if this ''dum squizzle" had 
been found in the Old or New Testament instead of in 
a "profane" book, it would have been made into an arti- 
cle of faith by some sect or other, and many a man 
would have expected to save his soul by believing in it with 
unquestioning simi)licity, Paul's "Prove all things," to 
the contrary notwithstanding. 

Self-reliance is one of the cardinal ^'irtues, admired 
by both God and man, and applied to religion as well as 
to othei- matters. Captain Miles Standish made a grave 
mistake in sending his friend, John Alden, to ])roi)Ose 
marriage for hhn to Miss Priscilla Mullens. Finding her 
a very comely girl, John Alden proposed for himself 
and was accepted. Evidently the girl disliked that de- 
pendent spirit of Standish which permitted courting by 
j^roxy. Why do men expect Heaven itself to be pleased 
when they do their spiritual love-m::king in the same 



Selfhood. 91 

i^owardly way? Wliy do they depend on tlie cliureli to 
iittend to their souls? Why do tlie}' ask for otlier i)eo- 
ple's prayers instead of lionoring God with their own? 
Why do they ask of Bibles and creeds, "What is truth?'' 
instead of consulting the God within themselves? Why 
do they lean where they should stand erect? 

A Persian monarch wondered why men would tire 
themselves out dancing when they were rich enough to 
hire others to do it for them. So, too, men have wondered 
why they should think for themselves in matters of reli- 
g'ion, while there are priests whose business it is to think 
for them. But mark this : the monarch could sit still and 
hire servants to dance /or him, but he could not, even if 
he had owned the world, sit still and employ others to 
make a dancer of him. Neither can men be converted 
into Christians by depending on hired help, voluntary 
iissistance, praying bands, or salvation armies. 

•'God's best and sweetest gift 

Falls not in showers, as fall the dew and rain; 
Ourselves to heaven's high gate we must uplift. 
Heaven's light to gain.'' 
And to these true words of Alice Cary, Mrs. Brown- 
ing adds: 

''Get leave to work: 
In this world 'tis the best you get at all: 

* * * * ^ 7^ * 

Be sure 'tis better than what yon work to get.'' 
When the student covers his slate with long col- 
umns of figures, he is working for an answer to a prob- 
lem. How insignificant a purpose I The problem itself 
is accomplishing the real answer by disciplining the 
student's mind. When, at last, every figure shall be 
erased, increased mental vigor alone will remain to sig- 
nify that anything has been wrought. The world is a 
slate. Houses and lands, churches and dogmas are the 
figures which men and women eniDlov in trvino- to solve 



92 Latest Interpretatioxs. 

the ])rol)li*iii of existoneo. Some day tliese figures will nil 
have (lisji])|)eare(l, when it w ill be diseovered that they 
were nothing, while mind is evei'vthing. Thus the (jues- 
tion of questions is aptly ])ut by Owen Meredith: 

"Not — how fared the soul through tlie trials she passed. 
But — what is the state of that soul at the last?" 

''There is no royal road to geometry," said Euelid 
to a king. Neither is there any royal road to heaven or 
to the best. Laboi* is religion. If it be God's curse, it 
is sweeter than man's benediction. Only as a soul moves 
is it visible. A meteor at rest woukl not be observed at 
any considerable distance; but, Hying through tlie at- 
mosphere, it lights up the whole landscape. It need be 
no larger than a grain of sand to be seen of men and 
])i'onounced a star. Why hug stoves or doctrines in 
which the fire, if there be any, may go out at any mo- 
ment, Avlien the true fire — that which the gods use upon 
their altars — is within you? For the most blessed 
warmth put your trust in manly exercise rather than in 
a theologieal fu^*nace. 

We are told that the force which holds together the 
elements in a drop of water would produce lightning if 
suddenly relieved. Try the experiment on blood. Let 
your veins flow^ with heaven's own electric fluid. 

In Jajjan, there is a law that any land unused for a 
year shall be forfeited to the public. Whenever any- 
where one's soul is unem})loyed, the same thing happens. 
The public takes possession of it and any charlatan is 
at liberty to Avrite his name, creed, fancy, dream or 
night mai-e thereon and call it gospel truth. 

If one had nothing else to work for he could not do 
better than to work for woi-k's sake. Edward Young is 
right : 



Selfhood. 98 

^'Life's cares are comforts; such by heaven (Unsigned: 
He that hath none must make them or be wretched. 
Cares are employments; and without employ 
The soul is on the rack, the rack of rest.'' 

Even the Peace-Maker knew that there was no way 
to escape toil, conflict and struggle; "Think not," says 
he, "that I am come to send peace on earth, I am come 
not to send peace, but a sword." Life is warfare, warfare 
is discipline, discipline is spiritual perfection, and spirit- 
ual perfection is divine. The ladder of existence has no 
unnecessary steps; we must take them as they come, or 
remain low down. 

Some persons are destined to carry heavy burdens 
from the cradle to the grave. The load was upon them 
when they were born. Still, destiny is kind. Roman 
soldiers while drilling were required to carry arms 
double the size of those employed in actual service. 
All the world is a drill-ground. We are to be made 
strong at whatever cost. If our training is severe, 
coming opportunity will be grand in proportion. If the 
soul ploughs deep, the final result will be found on the 
shining heights. 

I remember a story that used to delight my youth. 
A father who had been a famous general in the array 
desired his little son to grow up and adopt the same 
profession, that he, too, might become a military hero 
and do valiant service for the cause of justice and 
liberty. On his death-bed the old soldier summoned his 
boy ami said to him : "Some day I expect you to be a 
great soldier; but remember this, you will never win 
victories until you possess yourself of my sword — the 
one which I have wdelded on many a battle field, and 
which has never known defeat." The boy was fired 
with enthusiasm. "Where is the sword?" said he. "I 
will lay it carefully away and keep it till I am old 



94 Latest In ti: junket at ions. 

enough and strong enough to go to the wars." ''No/* 
answered tlie dying man, "you must not have the weap- 
on at present ; I liave secreted it beneath a certain rock 
in the forest ; whenever, by your unaided strengtli, you 
can lift tliat rock and thereby obtain the sword, hasten 
to the battle field ; then, and not till then, will you pos- 
sess the chai-med steel befoi'e which no guilty foe can 
stand." Shortly afterwards the fatlier died, and the bo\ ., 
burning with ambition, hastened to the forest, found the 
stone which his parent had described, and ti-ied with all 
his might to lift it! Alas! it ^vas too large for his feeble 
powers. Again and again he repeated tlie effort, but not 
a hair's breadth could the stone be stirred. Year followed 
year in quick succession, but the determined youth never, 
for a single day, forgot the enterprise whicli his dying fath- 
er had left to him. At last his rewai'd came. He had 
felt the stone tremble beneath his sinewy arm. By 
summoning all his strength of will and muscle, and con- 
centrating it all upon one final effort, the .'uicient rock 
was rolled from its resting place and the prize revealed. 
What ])rize ? Nothing was there but a rusted, ruined blade 
The brow of the youth grew sad. "Why is it," thought 
lie, "that my father mide such strange |)rovision for me ^t 
Surely there can l)e no charm in this corroded steeL'"' 
Then he reflected in this wise : "But how strong I have 
become in all these years of ])ersistent trial ! I see il 
all now ! The charm is not in the sword, but in the arm 
that has grown miglity in obtaining the sword." 

What a lesson is this for human life ! God places 
his numerous gifts beneath the rocks of trial and hard- 
ship in order that we may be j)roperly develoj)ed. The 
things we seek are not worth the seeking, but the things 
we actually get wliile seeking are Avorth every thingv 
It is because God places a very high estimate on man 



Selfhood. 1)5 

tliat "he visits hiiii every morning and tries liini every 
moment." Why do we complain? Why are we not 
willing to accept the terms of existence ? They are the 
best we shall ever have — the best any man, or angel, or 
archangel will ever obtain. 

It does not follow because man is divinely good by 
nature that he will not allow his heaven-born soul to be 
buried in sin and corruption. Too frequently is this the 
case. A leaden gewgaw is carried in the same casket 
with the golden chain, until by contact with the baser 
metal, the gold loses its lustre and is denounced \as 
spurious. Let us imitate the ermine. When its haunts 
have been covered with mud, it will submit to be cap- 
tured rather than defile its fur by entering its accus- 
tomed resorts. The robes which clothe the soul should 
be guarded with equal care. Not to have on the wed- 
ding garment, — that is the greatest misfortune. 

There is a beautiful Maylayan butterfly which has 
wings of purjDle and orange, but whose gorgeousness 
entirely disappears the moment it ceases its flight. 
Once the wings are closed, the sides which are exposed 
to view are exactly like tlie dead leaves on which the 
insect rests. Even the ugly appearance of fungi is 
closely imitated. How like tlie immortal spirit I In 
its flights of thought, imagination, aspiration and holy 
yearning, how beautiful ! But the instant it becomes 
earth-bound, all its loveliness is folded away, while its 
aspect is that of the inferior objects on which it dwells. 

In the city of Naples they showed me a mosaic 
table valued at a hundred thousand dollars. The angel 
faces which seemed to stand out in full relief from its 
unbroken surface Avere a delight to look upon. Suppose 
now^ that this precious work of art were to fall into the 
hands of an una})preciative housewife who should cover 



96 L AXES T I ^ T K K VR Vl T A T I ( ) N S . 

it with a c'liea}) cloth and keep it eoiistaiitly loaded 
down with the family ineiidiiig. That is the Avay we 
treat tlie innnortal spirit within us. Unmindful of the 
angel faces which may be reflected from it, unmindful 
of the beauty of its workmanshi]), unmindful of its 
inestimable value, we cover it with the dull, heavy 
fabric of worldliness, while it is ke])t heavily laden with 
the thousand and one commodities of our what-not 
life. Not only do we thus conceal the finest pictures 
that the divine artist could make, but we hide even 
from our own view^ the very handwriting of God, in 
which he has set forth his eternal will and pleasure. 
Must we wait for death to clear off the rubbish from 
our inner selves, in order that, for the first time, we may 
acquaint ourselves with ourselves? If we will not be- 
friend the God within us, death w^ill do it for us. 
"Oh weep not for the dead I 

Rather, oh, rather give the tear 
To those who darkly linger here. 

When all besides are fled: 
Weep for the spirit withering 

In its cold, cheerless sorrowing: 
Weep for the young and lovely one 

That ruin darkly revels on ; 
But never be a tear-drop shed 

For them, the pure enfranchised dead." 



BROTHERHOOD. 



BROTHERHOOD. 



Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? 

— Malachi ii. : 10. 
The ancient Jews did not always use the pronoun 
"our" in the same way that we who believe in the uni- 
versal brotherhood of man are accustomed to employ it. 
They believed that they were a peculiar people, especial- 
ly chosen of the Almighty to receive his blessings, while 
other nations either had no God or must content them- 
selves with such inferior gods as imagination might 
invent. In their better moments, however, they caught 
glimpses of a larger hope, and seemed to hear the great 
Jehovah saying unto Abraliam: "In thee shall all fami- 
lies of the earth be blessed." They knew then that they 
were set apart to do certain things, fill a certain place in 
human history, not on their own account, but on account 
of the world. On the whole, the Jews were far less 
conceited, and much more willing to discover the true 
God outside of their own little circle, than certain 
Christian denominations have been which have more re- 
cently occupied the earth. According to these narrow- 
minded partialists, 

"Heaven Is the home of an Orthodox ring, 
Where a divine enigma reigns as king, 
Where white-washed souls from this mundane shore 
Shall sing hallelujah forevermore.'' 
When I take up the New Testament and read these 
soul-stirring words : "Fori am persuaded that neither 
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, 
nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor 



100 Latest Interpretations. 

depth, nor any other creature, sliall be able to separate 
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our 
Lord," "Oh, yes," says the Calvinist, "but the 'us' in 
this passage does not refer to mankind generally, but to 
7^5 in particular, ?/5, the elect." Again I read: "For 
God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain sal- 
vation by -'our Lord Jesus Christ;" and the Calvinist is 
quick to inform me that "our" Lord Jesus Christ is not 
everybody's Lord Jesus Christ, by a good deal. With a 
little hope still left I venture to quote the ])arable of the 
lost sheep, that I may thereby show how saving love 
pursues the sinner through every avenue of danger, un- 
til he is rescued. "Yes, yes," cries the Calvinist, "but 
the lost sheep is a sheep, not a goat. JVe are the sheep. 
We shall be saved. Other people are goats." Then I 
refer to the words of Jesus: "And other sheep I have, 
which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and 
they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold 
and one shepherd." "One fold of sJieep^'' answers the 
Calvinist. " We are sheep. Other people are goats." 
Almost disheartened, I turn the pages of the Gospel till 
I come to this: "iVnd God shall wipe away all tears from 
their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither 
sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, 
for the former things are passed away." "That is appli- 
cable only to the redeemed," exclaims the Calvinist. 
" We are the redeemed. Other people will never have 
their tears wiped away, never cease dying, nor sorrow- 
ing, nor crying, and never be free from pain." 

Calvinism, so far as relates to the doctrine of pre- 
destination and election, has found a vigorous opponent 
in Arminianism, which teaches that men are saved by 
the free and unlimited grace of God, operating upon 
such human hearts as are not too hardened to receive it. 



Brotherhood. 101 

But what better is Arminianisin than the dooma which 

o 

it combats? In the one case we have a God who could 
save everybody, but who won't, and in the other, a God 
who would save everybody, but who can't. The difference 
between an infinitely obstinate won't and an infinitely 
pitiable can't is not of sufficient practical ini})ortance 
to be allowed to rend the Christian world. The Armi- 
nians as well as the Calvinists are })uffed up with 
conceit. If the one reads the grandest promises of the 
Gospel and unblushingly applies them all to ''us, the 
elect," the other, with equal audacity, applies them to 
"us, the converted." Takino- the evangelical churches 
as a whole, they would make us believe that the Gospel 
is addressed to the righteous, while ])oor miserable sin- 
ners haven't any Bible at all. It appears, therefore, 
from the logic of botli great branches of Orthodoxy, 
that when Christ said that he came to sa^e the lost, he 
didn't exactly mean what he said. Neither Calvinism 
nor Arminianism gives us any hope for more than a 
small portion of lost humanity. The one has no better 
success in this respect than the other. Each ])resents us 
wdth a little, narrow, contracted heaven, in which a 
mother would scarcely have room to toss her babe — and, 
it is feared, no babe to toss. 

Now the fact is that the Bible, so far as it is divine, 
is sent, not to the chui'ch, not to Christians, not to any 
particular class, set or sect, but to all liumanity. It is 
addressed to the most distant isles just as much as to us, 
— while if the heathen have any truth in their sacred 
books, that truth is addressed to us just as much as to 
them. The lines of distinction which separate the 
brotherhood of man into various grades and orders have 
simply an earthly origin. Universal Providence is no 
more governed by them than arc' the stars of heaven by 
the clouds that cover our land or sea. 



li>2 . Latest Intkki'ketations. 

You may have lieard of the man who happened into 
a church one Sabbath during the communion service, and 
found himself in a place to which he was entirely unac- 
customed. When the bread was passed to him, suppos- 
ing he had luckily hit on a free dinner, he thanked the 
astonished deacon for his hospitality, and then fell to 
and devoured the entire contents of the plate. What 
more ridiculous is this than the figure which those Chris- 
tians cut who approjjriate the bread of eternal life to 
themselves, instead of tasting, and then passing it to 
their neighbors? 

The practical utility of believing in the unlimited 
brotherhood of man cannot be overestimated. It makes 
the believer less selfish. Notice some of the prayers 
which are the legitimate production of partialistic view^s. 
I was acquainted with a very pious mother who at one 
time had a sick child. Now it happened that when the 
little girl began to improve in appetite, she asked for an 
egg on toast. There was not a good fresh egg in the 
house, and none to be had at any convenient market. 
But the mother believed in prayer just as firmly as she 
did that she herself was one of God's favorite saints; so 
she appealed to the Throne of Grace to send her a nice, 
new-laid egg for her invalid daughter. Pretty soon a 
neighbor's hen came over into that woman's w^ood-shed 
and laid an egg in a basket! The saintly woman regard- 
ed the event as a matter of course, cooked the egg, and 
thanked the Lord. After that, I suspect that whenever 
she asked the Lord to send her a fresh egg she slyly 
peeped out of the window^ to make sure that the wood- 
shed door was ajar. ]3ut how about the neighbor? 
True, he was not a church member, but had he no rights 
which the elect wei-e bound to respe(.*t? The w^oman 
was perfectly satisfied to obtain tlie egg for herself, no 



Hhotheriiooi). '' 108 

matter whethei* anybody else suffered foi- the want of it 
or not. Much of Christian prayer is e(|ually mean and 
selfish. It leaves out of consideration the hrothei'hood. 
Even the Lord's prayer is converted into a machine? for 
the promotion of home interests. ''Our P'ather" is 
made to mean the Father of the set, sect, circle or fami- 
ly to which the suppliant belongs. ''Give us this day 
our daily bread'' is not used as a prayer for all mankind, 
whether the hungering children of earth are in India or 
New York, but as a special request that our own little 
selves — those who are actually present when the prayer 
is offered — be not overlooked by the providence of God. 
Such a prayer, based as it is on unworthy and unchris- 
tian limitarianism, and which addresses an impartial 
Father as though he could favor one of his children at 
the expense of another, never goes higher than the 
breath which accompanies it, and is never answered by 
the Most Pligh. 

Thanking God because we are better off than other 
people, because we first saw the light of day in a Chris- 
tian land, and have received superior advantages, is al- 
most equivalent to the prayer of the Pharisee : -'God, I 
thank thee that I am not as other men are;" and as 
concerns this matter, one could hardly throw a stone 
into a Christian conoTcmtion without hittino; a Pharisee. 

We shall make few^er mistakes in dealing with man 
w^hen once the fact becomes permanently impressed upon 
the mind that the human race is literally a unit. It is 
an old fable that the gods, in the beginning, divided man 
into men, that he might be more useful to himself, and 
that essentially there is but one man. "What are we 
living for," cries Dorothea Brooke, "but to make lifeless 
difficult for each other?" It is ti-ue that no distinct 
dividing line can be discovered between the interest, 



104 La i'KSI' IX'I'KIM'KKIA noNs. 

happiness and woltMie of an iiKlividual, and the interest, 
happiness and welfare of all. Next to (iod, we live, 
move, and have our ix'ino-, in humanity. .Vuerbaeh says: 
"We !-eeeive with our life the nnnd of eenturies, and he 
Avho in ti'uth becomes a liumari beitio- is the whole hu- 
manity in himself." Saint Paul expresses about the 
same tliought, and, with equal emphasis, acknowledges 
the universal unity of the brotherhood: ''Who is weak 
nnd I am not weak? Who is offended and I burn not?" 
And this is a text which woi-ks both ways. Not only do 
we suffer in the sufferings of others, but rejoice in their 
rejoicings. Every true word spoken, every grand poem 
written, every beautiful song rendered, every noble deed 
wrouglit, let it come from whatever quarter of the 
globe, is as much our own w^ord, poem, song, or deed, as 
though it had received its first awakening in our own 
mind. In God's moral universe there is no such thimr 
as private property or individual monopoly. 
^'The tidal wave of deeper souls 
Into our inmost being rolls 

And lifts us unawares 

Out of all meaner cares." 

Howmany practicaldutiesare suggested by thisbroad 
theory of unbroken anrl unbreakable brotherhood! "We 
then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the 
w^eak." Before we attempt to pull down another man's 
reputr.tion, we should remember that his house joins 
ours, and that the wall between us is held in common. 

Generosity as well as forbearance is a brotherhood vir- 
tue. Moses commanded the people always to remember 
their less fortunate brethren : "And vv^hen ye reap the 
harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the 
corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the glean- 
ings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy 
vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy 



Brothkkhool), 105 

vineyard ; thou shalt leave them for the ])oor and stran- 
o-er." In field and garden, in kitchen and shop, in the 
market and on the play-ground, as well as in church or 
chapel, we should consider that all men are brethren. 
As every atom in earth or sea or sky has its certain in- 
fluence on every other atom, so are mortals bound 
together by invisible chains, infinitely strong. 

In ancient times serfs were employed as foot-stoves 
for rich men to warm their feet upon. Such conduct 
would be impossible where the truth concerning the uni- 
versal brotherhood of man is fully recognized. Even a 
king would not care to thus degrade a man on whom he 
must look as his own brother — the equal of himself. 
^'At a certain point," says Dumas, ''the intoxication of a 
prince greatly resembles that of a rag-picker.'' And he 
might have added that at a certain point the honesty, 
virtue or goodness of a rag-i)icker gj-eatly resembles that 
of a prince. In fact, there is no difference except it be 
that the righteousness Avliich cometh up from humanity's 
damp and shadowy places shines with greater lustre in 
the face of Heaven th.in that which cometh from the 
more favored heights. 

The religion which today should be emphasized 
is that of Altruism, as clearly taught by the Apostle, in 
these words : "Look not every man on his own things, 
but eveiy man also on the things of others." I once 
knew a man who expressed the wish that there would be 
a great war in Europe. On inquiring into the cause of 
this wicked desire on his part, I ascertained that he had 
a solitary cow to sell, and expected that she would bring 
a better ])rice in case two or three kingdoms should be 
involved in bloodshed. What did that man more need 
than a clear conception of the universal brotherhood? 
Yet, after all, his case is not isolated. He stands forth 



106 Latest Intkkpretatioks. 

as a representative of nations. Secretly, if not openly, 
does commercial America rejoice when there is a pros- 
pect of a terrible outbreak of passion in Germany or 
Great Britain, which shall enhance the value of our 
commodities. On the principle that the all of one man 
is equal to the all of any other man, the poor man's cow 
was as much to him as the sugar of Louisiana, the cot- 
ton of Mississii)pi, the coal of Pennsylvania, the wheat 
of Minnesota, or the factory interest of Massachusetts is 
to her. So long as unmitigated selfishness characterizes 
our national policy, so long as each kingdom or republic 
looks upoi] every other kingdom or republic as an oppo- 
nent, of whom to take advantage is the part of wisdom^ 
what better can be expected of individuals? Before the 
world can become really a desirable place in which to 
dw^ell, the idea of the universal brotherliood must be- 
come international. No single state, republic or king- 
dom can for one moment be conscious of safety so long 
as any portion of the world is cursed by the plague of 
war, or is trembling with the fear of revolution. 

If there be any manly satisfaction or pride in speak- 
ing of our town, our city, our state, or our country, then 
should there be still more satisfaction and pride in speak- 
ing of our humanity, our brotherhood. 

'*For a thousand million lives are his 
Who carries the world in his sympathies." 

On one of the earliest coins of this country was 
stamped the much-praised motto, "Mind your own busi- 
ness." Such counsel reeks rank selfishness. It is 
neither Altruism, Christianity nor godliness. Many a 
poor child, or man, or woman, has died of want and 
despair, because the coin in the miser's pocket kept say- 
ing, "Mind your own business." Many an unfortunate 
victim of thouo'htless sin and the w^orld's neo;lect has 



Brotherhood. 107 

suffered a thousand deaths for want of a kindly word or 
sympathetic look. The man who went on his wedding 
tour, and left his w^ife at home, because, as he said, he 
had not money enough to ])ay the expenses of both, 
minded his own business with a vengeance. In India, 
the Christian converts must still have two tables at 
communion service, one for the high and one for the 
low, and each class is supposed to "mind its own busi- 
ness." It is evident that the aristocracy hasn't Chris- 
tianity enough to divide between itself and the other 
party. Do Ave ever see anything resembling this in our 
home churches':" Does ever a man or woman conduct 
himself or herself as though he or she belonged to the 
caste rather than to the brotherhood? Is ever a stran- 
ger, or a poor man or a poor woman allowed to attend 
religious services and leave the house of God unspoken 
to, because the regular members of the congregation 
attend strictly to their own business, or to that of their 
own set? True, the stranger may not be a very good 
person, or one very desirable to associate with, but will 
he or she be likely to become much better through the 
agency of our neglect or contempt? Christ gives one 
command which so staggers the majority of Christians 
that they almost regard it as one of his mistakes. He 
says, "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of 
unrighteouness," and the context shows that he desires 
his disciples to cultivate the friendship of unrighteous 
people. Perhaps there is no advice which our churches 
more need. 

The Gospel of the uniA^ersal brotherhood is not only 
the Gospel of time, but the Gospel of eternity. It 
could have no force or virtue here upon earth, were it 
not equally applicable to our future state. In that, as 
w^ell as in this, all grades and classes, from the highest 



108 Latest Interpretations. 

even to the lowest, will be united in common sympathy. 
The question of Whittier is pregnant with meaninor: 

^'Can Heaven itself be heaven 
And look unmoved on hell?" 
In this world such a condition of things could not pre- 
vaih When men are buried in a coal mine the whole 
country is saddened at the very thought. No one asks, 
were they good men or bad, but every one feels that 
nothing should be left undone toward rescuing them 
from their dreadful situation, whether dead or alive. 
Shall the redeemed in the holy Jerusalem be less thought- 
ful and more heartless? Will they content themselves 
in attending to their own business while some of their 
fellow beings are buried alive in a horrible sulphur mine? 
Could any soul joyfully accept a salvation which should 
repi-esent only a ragged segment of a circle? If so, the 
distances from the center to the circumference of that 
soul could not pro])erly be called magnificent. 

'^Place such a soul 
Within a small pipe's bowl. 

And with your thumb the larger part defend ; 
In vain is all your care, 
You cannot keep it there, 

'Twill make a turnpike of the little end.'' 

Almost identical with this doctrine of the universal 
brotherhood of man is that of love. So nearly are the 
two ideas related that if one fails the other cannot sur- 
vive. Christ recognized this in all his teaching. Love 
was the word on which he laid all the stress of which 
his .mighty soul was capable. In this connection, O. B. 
Frothingham has left us an eloquent paragraph: "Each 
prophet has his word of might. Buddhn's word is re- 
nunciation, Zoroaster's is purity. Menu's is justice. The 
word of Confucius is moderation, the woi'd of Moses is 
law, the word of Plato is harmony, the word of Socra- 



Brotherhood. 109 

tes is reason. Epictetus lays emphasis on self-reliance, 
Antonius lays stress on the peace of the firm and steadfast 
soul. \Yhat does Jesus speak? The word love. That is his 
contribution to the soul's vocabulary,— love. Love is 
the fulfilling of the laAV. Love God, love man, love the 
poor, the weak, the wicked. 'Thy sins which are many 
are forgiven, for thou hast loved much,' is his sentence 
on the sinful woman. He introduces loA^e into the 
bosom of the Hebrew Jehovah, and the stern eye fills 
with tears that drop in summer showers on the thirsty 
ground, and light up with smiles that are sunbeams, 
gladdening alike the just and the unjust. He introduces 
love into the conception of immortality and shows us 
the angels of little children always basking in the light 
of the Father's countenance. He introduces love into 
politics, and kings become ministers, and nobles servants. 
The neediest is lord. He introduces love into the social 
relations, and all men are brothers, have everything in 
common, live in peace. He introduces love into the 
heart, and there are but two emotions therein, — gratitude 
and trust." 

In this doctrine of love — love sufiiciently broad to 
cover all mankind — evei'v consolation is to be sought 
and obtained. It is the one governing principle which 
succeeds where everything else fails. It is infinitely 
more precious than light or air, yet more common than 
either. — 

'•Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, 

And men below and samts above; 

For love is heaven, and heaven is lov^." 

There is love enough in this fair universe for all our 
friends, and then there is enough, and to spare, for all 
our enemies. 

^ 'Why should I spend my precious time, 
Swift moments as they go, 



110 Latest Interpretations. 

Ill heaping contumely and spite 

Upon my bitterest foe? 
Why should I build a barricade 
That e'en shall reach the sea. 
Bristling with shafts of hate, between 
Mine enemy and me?" 
Mi-8. Kidder may well ask why she or any man or 
any woman should be so out of harmony with the ruling- 
principle of creation as to liate any one, but I wonder if 
it did not occur to the fair poetess to inquire how God 
can afford to build a barricade of infinite wrath, — not 
only as high as the sky, but from the bottom to the to]) 
of the uniA^erse, between his enemies and himself. If in 
man it is wrong to hate, it cannot be right in God. If 
there be a devil, let him hate, and let him have a com- 
plete monopoly of the business. It is the nature and 
occupation of the Infinite to love. It is man's nature 
also and should be his occupation. 

"O, Love is higher than what thou loves t; 
And though she may seem of earth. 
And be named howev*^r thou most appro vest. 
She is one, and of heavenly birth." 
"Without love," says a French author, ''it would 
be sad to be a man." He might have added that witli- 
out love, it would be sadder yet to be a woman, and 
saddest of all to be a God. ''The heart that had never 
loved," says some one, "was the first Atheist." No 
doubt of it. Love and faith go hand in hand. Cole- 
ridge is I'ight: 

"He prayeth well who love'Ji well 
])Oth man, and bird, and beast. 
He prayeth best wiio loveth best 

All things both great and small: 
For the dear God who loveth us, 
He made and loveth all." 
To love is an obligation which brings its own re- 
ward. ]\Iythology ascribes the invention of wi'eaths to 



Bkothekhood. Ill 

Prometheus, who imitated with flowers the fetters he 
had worn by loving mankind. To love an enemy may 
be difticult, but it involves no such hardship as hating him. 
It is always easier to explain to ourselves why we should 
love than to find even a tolerable excuse for enmity. Oui* 
own faults and misfortunes may always remind us of tlie 
charity we should exercise toward others. — 

•'Eacli soul liath stemmed some fearful storm, 

Each heart is chafed with wasting scar; 
My life-boat wrecked in manhood's morn, 

Xow drifteth like a shooting star. 

''But oh! I have not lost the power 

Of sympathy at sorrow's call — 
For love inspires each fading hour, 

That love w^hich feels — then gives to all.'' 
Love, ]-ather than power, or law, is the perfect 
teacher and the sure reformer. I have seen dead leaves 
clinging to an oak tree throughout the entire winter. 
Not the angry winds of November, the drifting snows 
of December, the chilling blasts of January, the sting- 
ing frosts of February, or the ferocious tempests of March, 
could loosen their death-like grip upon the tree. But 
when spring came, w^th its quiet, balmy air and life-giv- 
ing sunshine, when all w^as peaceful and quiet, those 
leaves fell one by one as though plucked by angel fin- 
gers. A new life had been developed in the tree, new 
leaves were starting, and the old and useless must de- 
part. On theological branches there are many dead 
leaves. Not by the angry storms of controversy shall they 
be shaken from their places, but by surrounding tlie tree 
with that gentle atmosphere of love which shall bring 
forth the new and better thought. 

*' There is a weapon firmer set. 

And brighter than tlie bayonet, 
A weapon that comes down as still 

As snowflakes fall upon the sod, 
Yet executes the freeman's will 

As lightning does the will of God." 



112 Latest Interpretations. 

An einineiit observei' Jifiinns that niiinerous inicro- 
scopic beings, which in the shade remain vegetal)les, 
assume a higher character in the sun and become verita- 
ble animals. Whetlier this be so or not, it forcibly illus- 
trates a very important fact in the moral world. 
"In sunless place there spring apace 
Things loathly, low and vile. 
80 heart bereft of love is left 
To grow ill thoughts the while.'* 
Just in ])ropoi*tion as we love, we live. Not bi'csid^ 
but affection, ministers to the real want of our existence, 
•'I'm living where I'm loving. 
I am not wliere I am.*' 
To love is to hate evil. Xo one can be false to the 
brotherhood who has learned the language of Christ, 
No one can sin whose love is complete. 
*' Higher than the perfect song 
For which love longeth, 
Is the tender fear of wrong 
That never wiongeth.'' 
Finally, the world, and the heavens, and all which 
they contjiin, belong only to those who know how to love 
them. Title-deeds cainiot confer ownershi]), church 
creeds cannot transfer truth from God to man, and re- 
ligious ])rofession does not prove j)Ossession, but, 
"The world's most royal heritage is his 
Who most enjoys, most loves, and most forgives.'' 



CONSOLATION. 



CONSOLATION. 



Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
Father of mercies, and God of all comfort; who comforteth us 
in our affliction, that we may be able to comfort them that are in 
any affliction, through the comfort wherewith we ourselves are 
comforted of God. — 2 Cor. i. : 3-4. 

Christianity is especially adapted to the afflicted, 
for if that which is designed to be comforting were 
taken out of the teaching of Christ, there would not be 
enough left to constitute a foundation for any system of 
religion. Yet, strange to say, the moment we leave the 
Gospel — Avhich means good new^s — and inquire of the 
creeds of men, we shall never guess that consolation 
was the chief purpose of the blessed Master. As I have 
intimated in a previous discourse, we must turn away 
from ecclesiastical tenets, and hasten to the inspiring- 
words of truth-born poesy if we would find the leaves 
whose balm is for the healing of the nations. 

'*For doth not song 
To the whole world belong I 
Is it not given wherever tears can fall, 
Wherever hearts can melt or bushes glow. 
Or mirth and sadness mingle as they flow, 
A heritage to all?" 

And this is my apology, if one be needed, for ask- 
ing: the oTcat company of muses to add their testimonv 
to my own poor words, while T endeavor, at this hour, 
to comfort the sorrowing, give hope to the despondent, 



110 Latest Intkkpketatio^s. 

faith to the doubtiiiu', consolation to the bereaved, and 

grander views concernino" life and death to every one. 

"These themes indeed 
The noblest are that can employ the soul.'' 

The philology of tribulation suggests the wisdom 
of those who gave us the word. It conies fi'om the 
Latin trihulam, which was the threshing instrument or 
roller by which the Romans separated the wheat from 
the chaff. 

"Till from the straw the flail the corn doth beat, 
Until the chaff be purged from the wheat, 
Yea, till the mill the grains in pieces tear, 
The richness of the flour will scarce appear.-' 

Every mountain of crucifixion is also the mountain 
of ascension. Extraordinary afflictions bring extraordi- 
nary graces. 

"Lord, thou hast a holy purpose 
In each suffering we bear, 
In each throe of pain and terror, 

In each secret, silent tear. 
In the weary days of sickness. 
Famine, want and loneliness. 
In our night-time of bereavement. 
In our souFs Lent bitterness.'' 

How sometimes dark and heavy is the cloud over 
our head! But wliat is that beautiful sunset scene — the 
despair of every artist — tow^ard which a million admir- 
ing eyes are turned, and on account of which a millioni 
holy emotions are born? It is that same sombre cloud,, 
having drifted into a more favorable light. Thus it 
shall be with all our sorrows. Once give them the ad- 
vantage of the bright sun of sj)iritual truth, and they 
will cease to exist as clouds, and be known only as gold- 
en chariots, tilled to repletion with the royal gems of 
heaven. 



COXSOLATIOX. 117 

^^Then let us weep but not despair; 

For when the clouds of sorrow come. 
Heaven writes in rainbow colors there 

The promise of our better home." 
No person's loss was ever yet so great, that there 
was not something left. Make the most of that some- 
thing, and lo, it ])roves to be everything. It is related 
of Paganini, the celebrated violinist, that on one occa- 
sion when he stood before an audience tuning his in- 
strimient preparatory to the })erforniance, one string- 
after another broke, until only one was left. The peo- 
ple laughed and sneei-ed by turns, until the great musi- 
cian beo'an on the one remaininQ- string- and bronolit 
forth such sweet, inspiring music that every murmur 
was hushed, every ear ravished with the exquisite strains, 
and every eye moistened as each soul in the room seem- 
ed struggling to escaj)e from its thraldom and to draw 
near to that wonderful musician who was speaking in 
the mother ton one of the inner life. The music of the 
spheres is within ourselves. All outwai-d forms may 
disappear; we are still in possession of uns])eakable 

wealth. 

'•Bless thy (xod — the heart is not 
An abandoned urn. 
Where all lonely and forgot. 

Dust and ashes mourn; 
Bless him that his mercy brings 
Joy from out its withered things.'' 
Has Death robbed you of some dear one? Seek 
not to console yourself with the thought that what is 
your loss is that one's gain ; for this is the better faith, 
that what is that one's gain is also yours. If you have 
parted with an earthly friend you have secured a heaven- 
ly. TJiink not to quell your perturbed heart by forcing 
yourself to say, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh 
away; blessed be the name of the Lord." The Lord 



118 Latest Interpretations. 

gives, gives, gives. He never takes away, except to add 
to the blessing. He is not like a Hckle child, that he 
should bestow a gift and then demand it again. Our 
dead are ours in the largest possible sense. 
''Sweet souls around us, watch us still, 
Press nearer to our side ; 
Into our thou.sflits, into our prayers, 
With gentle helping glide." 

"It is a beautiful belief 

That ever round our head 
Are hovering, on noiseless wing, 
The spirits of the dead. 
*'It is a beautiful belief. 
When ended our career, 
That it will be our ministry 
To watch o'er others here." 

Are you in trouble at the thought suggested by 
scheming creeds, that there is possibly a dreadful condi- 
tion awaiting the unrepentant dead? Let the whole truth 
be told; tell it bravely to your own soul, and this is it: Sin- 
fulness must be dealt with — for Love's sake. Correction 
must be administered, but only by the hand of Love. 
Impurity must not forever dwell with purity. What 
then? Must a soul perish? Xo; impurity must perish. 
Love redeems. That is the whole Gospel. Death has 
no power to stay the proceedings of Love. ''Probation" 
is a bugaboo. It lias no place in Scripture or in reason. 
We are not on ti'ial, as students declaim for prizes. 
The question is frequently asked: "Does probation end 
at death?" Yes; at the death of superstition. All that 
Love requires of us is to go on. At death the same old 
eternal song will resound in our ears : ''Go on, go on !" 
We may have to unlearn much, undo much, and be sent 
back many times to deal anew with our neglected selves, 
but this is the w^orst that can happen. It is Love's man- 



Consolation. 119 

agement, and even here the cry will not cease, ''Go on, 
go on!" Fear not for the departed, however much they 
may have erred in their earthly life. 
•^Sin shall dissolve 

In goodness supernal, 
Beauty and joy 
Alone are eternal." 
Heed not those who vainly talk of some needful 
and special preparation for death, some final breathings 
of repentance, some manifestation of divine acceptance- 
It was once my lot to be invited to the palace of one of 
earth's greatest potentates, that I might pay my respects 
to his name and fame. But there was a hitch in the 
proceedings. It was not convenient for me to be ushered 
into his august presence at the special hour mentioned 
in the invitation, and so I respectfully requested that 
the time might be postponed. Then I was coolly in- 
formed that in not complying with the strict letter and 
detail of the monarch's will and jjleasure, I had offend- 
ed his most excellent majesty, and henceforth could look 
to him for no favors whatsoever. This official pomp 
and ceremony may be needful in approaching earthly 
kings, but' the strange thing is that our theologians 
should have pretended to discover the same fussiness, 
with all its vanity and childishness, in the courts of 
Heaven. All that the good Father says to his children 
is,''ComeI" Men bother themselves to death in discussing 
the needless questions, IIow? When? Where? while 
from Heaven itself no response is heard except, "Come." 
"And the Spirit and the bride say. Come. And let him 
that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, 
come. And whosoe\ er will, let him take the water of 
life freely." If we may properly compare God's recep- 
tion of his children, whether they accept his call in this 
life or the next, to anything earthly, let us leave the 



120 LATKsr Inti<:hpj{kta rioNs. 

vulii^fir sujx'i-tic'iality of courtly etiquette, .nid observe liow 
a mother would i-eceive her long-absent son. Slie has 
just liear<l that he is on his way lioine from the war. 
How hei- lieart leaps to meet him I Faney her makino- 
tlie inquiries, "In what manner does he come? By what 
route — the liill or tlie valley? By water or land? How 
is lie dressed — like a civilian or soldier?" But let fancy 
go further. Picture her as replying, "Ah, then, if he 
comes through the valley, I will not allow him to ap- 
proacli. If he has not doffed his battle-stained uniform 
I will cause him to feel the bitterness of my wrath." 
Preposterous! This cannot possibly be a real mother 
whom we are portraying. No; neither is it our real 
Heavenly Father. To him we can always appeal for 
kindness. In him Ave can always find a true friend, 
wliatever may be our condition. 

''Forgive tlie thought that everlasting ill 
To any can be part of thy design. 
Finite, imperfect, erring, guilty — still 
All souls, great God, are thine, and mercy thine.'" 

As the government recognizes its own bonds l)y 
the shreds of hidden silk which Avere placed there Avhen 
the paper was made, so, at last, Avill Heaven identify its 
OAvn Avoi-k, not by any outward marks, but by the threads 
of divinity which were left in every soul at its creation. 

''Souls pure and strong from (iod still wing their flight 
And dwell anions: us for a little space: 
AA'lioso loves truth may in theii' heauty trace 
'I'he semblance of the everlasting light.'" 

l>ut it may be that I am addressing one Avho neither 
fears nor ho])es concerning the hereafter, in whose mind 
the conception of immortality is wrapped in darkest 
doubt. Alan not immortal? Then what is human life? 
A clieat from the beginning to the end; a ladder whose 
base is on earth and whose summit is in the everlasting 



COXSOLATIOX. ril 

nowhere ; a bridge whose begiuniiig is on the hither 
shore, while its end is in the middle of tlie river ; a field 
which is always ploughed and sown, ploughed and sown 
again and again, but never harvested; a book with won- 
<lerfu] preface, but no completion. 

We came to the world with a cry — 
We wept through our infantile days — 

And now we do little but sigh 

And ask if it's true that life pays. 

If crying and sighing are all — 

If this is the end of life's plan, 
Love's rule is exceedingly small, 

And earth's greatest failure is man. 

If mind is destructible, then nothing in the uni- 
verse is steadfast, nothing has come through from the 
^tart, nothing will go tlirough to the end. But tlie soul 
rises in its majesty and proclaims itself related to the 

•eternal. 

"We bow our heads 
At going out, and enter straight 
Another golden chamber of the king's. 
Larger than this we leave, and lovelier." 
In the high northern latitudes I have seen the twi- 
light in the western sky, and then turned my face to the 
east only to behold that the golden dawn had already 
appeared. Thus it was when your loved one died. The 
li2:ht of this Avorld had not vet faded ere the brio-ht in- 
coming of the new and endless day greeted the spirit 
gaze. 

"There is a land mine eye hath seen. 
In visions of enraptui-ed thought. 
So bright that all which spreads between 

Is with its radiant glory fraught: — 
A land upon whose blissful shore 

There rests no shadow, falls no stain: 
There those who meet shall part no more, 
And those long parted meet again." 



122 LatKvST Interpretations. 

Dear friend, I do not |)lead with you to have faith, 
for that you already riclily possess. Every one has faith 
— it is God-given and universal — but it is not every one 
who brings it into exercise when it is most needed. 
Some allow it to remain hidden when its emj)loyment 
could lend cheer to the darkest night; and some have 
mixed it with so much which is not faith, but unworthy 
credulity, that they can derive from it no comfort what- 
ever. "Can it be," asked Michael Servetus of John 
Calvin, "that mere confusion of mind is to be deemed 
an adequate object of faith?" No; true faith is clear- 
ness of mind, and a necessity of jnan's welfare. Prof 
Tyndall, in addressing the British Association, of which 
he was president, spoke as follows : "Man never has 
been and he never will be satisfied with the operations 
and products of the understanding alone; hence physi- 
cal science cannot cover all the demands of his nature." 

•'We have but faith, we cannot know; 
For knowledge is of things w^e see." . 

Let no one demand thy faith for mere priest-made 
theories or theological guesses. Faith is for those 
things, and for those only, which, in our inmost soul, we 
know ought to be true. Le Verrier weighed our plan- 
etary system in the balance and i)roclaimed that there 
should be another planet, and that it should be found at 
such a place in the heavens. He had not seen it, no 
man had seen it, but his scientific faith told him that 
what should be^ is. And he was right, foi* when astron- 
omers turned their telescopes toward the place he had 
pointed out, the star was discovered. Men shoidd live 
hereafter in order to give explanation, beauty and finish 
to the present life. In spiritual concerns as in material, 
everything must be made to ])roperly harmonize. Col- 
umbus sought not the land which he or his associates 



Consolation. 123 

had ever seen, hut the land which he knew ought to 
exist, the land which his faith had ah-eady occupied. 
Thus do we seek the new and better country, and our 
faith should occupy a territory large enough for all the 
souls of the Old World to possess. 

*^Then courage, heart, have faith and Avatch and wait. 

The loved and kindred, thither crossed before. 

Are waving signals on the shining shore." 
Do you remind me that faith frequently misses its 
objective point? For example, in the discovery of 
America, Columbus did not find just what he was look- 
ing for — a new track to the Old World, or a wonderful 
island belonging to Asia — but an entirely new and 
strange country. Afterward how many came to these 
shores in search of Eldorado, The Fortunate Isles, the 
Garden of the Gods, The Fountain of Perpetual Youth, 
the Land of Beautiful Women, etc. Faith unfurled 
many a white sail on the raging sea, pointed many a 
bow^ toward unknown dangers, and populated vast re- 
gions of this New" World. And the best of it is, that, 
essentially, this faith was based on the broad foundation 
of truth. Only as concerns trivial detail and insignifi- 
cant circumstance did it miscarry. The Eldorado was 
actually found, and failed of recognition only because it 
was so much larger than the childish imaginations of the 
Toyagers had pictured it. Are not the Fortunate Isles 
all about us? The Garden of the Gods is here. Be- 
hold the millions of young men and young women on 
whom the sun rises and sets and whose numbers never 
diminish, and tell me if this is not the Fountain of 
Perpetual Youth. Look at the fair daughters of men 
as they come and go, making all human endeavor joy- 
ous, and life itself a holy inspiration, and then confess 
that this indeed is the Land of Beautiful Women. So 
the faith of the vision-makers Avho succeeded Columbus 



124 Latkst In tkrpretations. 

was wroiio- only in tlus,that it fell far short of the glorious 
reality which awaited the ripening years. So it shall be 
w^ith our faith in the spiritual New \\'orl(l. No doubt 
much of the detail and circumstance, which our fancy 
has given to the hereafter, will fail to l)e realized, as in- 
deed, for the gh^ry of God and of men and of angels, it 
ought to fail. But it is only our childishness that will 
be disappointed. Our real Heaven will be as much 
larger than the mental picture we have drawn of it as 
the most distant visible sun is larger than the meteoric 
pebble that for a moment rushes into earth's atmosphere 
and receives the name of star. Let us liope to the ut- 
most, pray for the best we can conceive of, and then 
believe that we shall get infinitely better than hope or 
])rayer could now comprehend. 

'•Pray; though the gift you ask foi* 
May never comfort your feai.s. 
May never repay your pleading. 

Yet pray, and with hopeful tears; 
An answer, not that you long for. 
But divine, will come one day: 
Your eyes are too dim to see it. 
Yet strive, and wait, and pray." 

Faith is sim])ly life's outlook. Go Avith me to a 
line, lai'ge mansion, in front of wdiich is a majestic rivei', 
and, in that distance which lends enchantment to the 
view, a mountain landscape. Earth affords no grander 
vicAv. Yet, surprising as it may seem, the occupant of 
that house never lifts the curtains oi* o])ens the blinds of 
the front windoAvs, but sits all day in a })ooi'ly furnislied 
room which looks only into the back yan^, wlu^re the 
winter's ashes, broken crockery and unseemly 
rubbish are thrown, while in the distance iu)thing pre- 
sents itself but the moss-covered stones of an ancient 
grave-yard. Such is life without faith — a house all back- 



Con soLATioN. 1 25 

look. How many ai'e living thns ! Tlie mountain of 
Zion, the city of God, and the river of eternal lifi^ are at 
the front door, while naught but our broken years and 
the doleful cemetery of our dead ho|)es can be seen from 
the rear a}>artment in which we doom ourselves to live, 
and move, and have our being. How poor and mean is 
the best residence compared with the landscape that 
should occu])y its foreground. AVhat human being can 
really live within four walls ? It is the great outside, 
filled with loveliness and light, in which the soul has its 
chief existence. This is life's outlook. This is faith. 

•'There be hours methiiiks when the spirit leaves 
The footworu patlis tliat it erst has trod. 
And on a higlier, purer plane 

Holds closer converse with its God: 
And wlien with clearer ej'es we see. 

His love the universe replete 
And clouds of doubt and mystery 

Like shackles break about our feet. 
We may not always keep those heights. 

The valley paths are full of pain: 
The work He gives lies farther down. 

'Tis needful we return again; 
And yet it sweetens everv cup, 

Wliich pityingly His hand has given, 
That once our souls were lifted up 
To purple hills that dream of heaven." 
In looking at the new moon, we frequently observe 
the dim outline of the larger j)ortion, on wdiich the sun 
is not shining. This, we are told, is the reflection of 
earth-light. How very feeble it is as compared w^th the 
brightness wdiich comes from the king of the planets, — a 
king whose eye lias never yet seen darkness. Yet this 
earth-light \Nliicli our satellite so obscurely reveals, 
correctly symbolizes the comfort which any human soul 
may obtain from earthly sources. Why should one look 
downward for hope or consolation, when the great above 



126 Latest Interpketations. 

is so mucli larger, riclier, fuller, and more glorious ? 
Why should earth or earthly promises be deemed suffi- 
cient to satisfy our spirit's unutterable longing, when 
earth confesses its own poverty by depending for its 
very existence on the breath of the sun, warming itself 
by the touch of a higher life, and driidving in the full 
vigor of the starry constellations? 

"So may my soul upon the wings 
Of faith unwearied rise, 
Till at the gate of heaven it sings, 
Midst light from paradise." 

"But the one stubborn fact remains," says the mourn- 
er, "m?/ loved one is deadP "Yes," I reply, "but death is 
not terrible." Says Lucan : "The gorls conceal from men 
the happiness of death that they may endure life ;" and 
Young adds : "Death but entombs the body, life the 
soul." If this were a deathless world, how could we 
ever become spiritually minded ? What would tempt us 
beyond animalism ? What would ever give our vision an 
upward turn ? What would prevent oui* eyes from grow- 
ing downward ?" 

"Well blessed is he who has a dear one dead; 
A friend he has w'hose face will never change — 
A dear communion that will not grow strange. 
The anchor of a love is death." 

Be comforted with the thought that your sorrow is 
working out for you a more abundant jo} . When the 
waters of the Nile overflow its banks, many tender 
])lants and beautiful flowers are buried beneath the flood. 
Thus with your heart while bowed down with its burden 
of grief. You forget that the flood will abate, and that 
then the blossoms will burst forth in all the greater luxu- 
riance, because of the baptism through which they have 
passed. Richer and deeper will be the soil from which 
future harvests shall sjjring. Bereavement hath no share 



Consolation. 127 

of curse. The good Father doeth — not some things, 
but all things, well. 

*'01i for the peace which floTveth as a river. 
Making life's desert places bloom and smile I 
Oh for the faith to grasp heaven's bright "forever" 
Amid the shadows of earth's "little while I" 

Count your treasures. Xothing, no one, is lost, 
while you, even in your disconsolation, are richly gain- 
ing. In the Old World they showed me pictures by the 
old masters, valued at a hundred thousand dollars 
apiece. But I know of pictures beside which these 
would be pitiably mean and cheap. Look into your 
heart ! Behold the picture of your sainted dead ! Can it 
ever be effaced from your sacred love ? Could it be pur- 
chased with base gold ? Xo, no ; it has become a part of 
yourself. It will grow more beautiful and angelic as 
the years go on. No power can rob you of it. It is 
where thieves cannot break through nor steal, and where 
no moth can corrupt. Death may beckon you from 
these earthly scenes, but the picture of your beloved, 
the glorified countenance of your dear one, as indelibly 
stamped upon your memory and forever impressed upon 
your sweet affection, is yours, not Death's. Whatever 
love has once secured to you is exempt from all vicissi- 
tude of danger. 

"1 shall know the loved who have gone before. 
And joyfully sweet will the meeting be. 
When over the river, the peaceful river. 
The angel of death shall carry me.'' 

Oh, the mementos of the dead which love rescues 
from tlie profane and common things of earth. What- 
ever the dear one has fondly possessed has become for- 
ever sacred in our hands. If the world is poorer because 
a dear one has departed, it is richer because it was that 
one's home. The air, the light, and every object in 



128 L A TE S T 1 N T K liVli K T A TION S . 

whicli the beloved had oiiee found gladness, now oecu- 
py a more precious place in our affections. But w luit 
sliall we say of heaven? Is it not brought nearer to 
earth, because the one to whom we still cling is there al- 
so? And is not heaven nioi'e heaveidy to tliose 
who can say, ''^ly treasure is there, iny home is forecast 
u])on its bright hori/on, my interest is henceforth cen- 
tered in its divine benediction of eternal ])eace?" Speak 
tlien to the sainted dead as tliough the Kingdom of God 
were not far from each one of us, — not far from love. 
As you said ere Death came between you and the 
dear object of your affection, still say with fullest as- 
surance: 

•'Yes, I will lovo thee ever, 

May Heaven this truth attest. 
E'en till we cross the river 

And enter there our rest: 
One here in joy and sorrow. 

One mid that radiant band. 
We still will love each other 

When round the throne we stand. 
•*Foi" hearts on earth luiited 
In bonds of holy love. 
Shall know but higher rapture 

And purer joys above: 
No friendships shall be broken. 

Or earthly ties be riven, 
l^ut hope shall find fruition; 
For Love is born of Heaven." 



IMMORTALITY. 



IMMORTALITY. 



If a man die shall lie live again? — Job xiv. : 14. 

The Old Testament leans toward the negative of 
the great question we are now to discuss. Even the 
psalmist says : "The dead praise not the Lord ; neither 
any that go down into silence." And Job adds: "Man 
lieth down and riseth not. Till the heavens be no 
more, they shall not awake ; nor be roused out of their 
sleep." Then the Preacher testifies that, "All go to one 
place; =^ ^ ^ the dead know not anything." 

Leaving the Hebrew Scriptures, we hear Pliny say: 
"Death is an everlasting sleep." And ^schylus adds: 
"There is no resurrection for him who is once dead." 
Even I^apoleon does not seem to have had very exalted 
ideas of a future state. He says: "My soul will pass 
into history and the deathless memories of mankind, and 
thus in glory shall I be immortal." Dr. Johnson an- 
nounced: "I want more proofs of the immortality of 
the soul." But Harriet Martineau professed to be satis- 
fied without proof or belief, and thus wrote: "I neither 
wish to live lono;er here, nor to find life ao-ain elsewhere. 
It seems to me sim^^ly absurd to expect it, and a mere 
act of restricted human imagination and morality to 
conceive of it. It seems to me that there is not only a 
total absence of a renewed life for human beings, but so 
clear a way of accounting for the conception, in the im- 
maturity of the human mind, that I myself utterly dis- 
believe in a future life." The ex-clergyman, George C- 



132 Latest Intekpketations. 

JVIiln, dares to say: ''To tliose who confidently predict a 
future existence for the soul of man, I again propose tlie 
demonstration of tlie separability of mind and body. 
Prove that, and I am convinced." B. F. Underwood 
finds the same difficulty and says: "The mind is evolved 
with the body. They grow together. What ])roof is 
tliere that when one dies the other continues to live?" 
Charles Bradlaugh is also upon the negative and inquires : 
"What do you know about the soul? Nothing what- 
ever." And again he declares: "Your doctrine that 
man has a soul prevents him from rising." John Stuart 
Mill also denies the great hope and delares that "the 
mere cessation of existence is no evil to any one." 
Robert G. Ingersoll probably re])resents the disbelievers 
as faithfully as any one. He gives it as his opinion that 
"Thought is a form of force. We walk with the same 
force with which we think." Again: "Man is a machine 
into which we put what we call food, and produce what 
we call thought. Think of that wonderful chemistry by 
w^hich bread was changed into the divine tragedy of 
Hamlet." Again he dogmatises thus: "A poem is pro- 
duced by the forces of nature, and is as necessarily and 
naturally produced as mountains and seas." 

I have now quoted the very strongest assertions* 
against the doctrine of immortality that I have been 
able to find. Are they formidable? Do they frighten 
any one? Will they not serve the good purpose of 
making the affirmative of the question all the more beau- 
tiful by contrast? If the issue could be settled by the 
voice of thoughtful men and women, it would quickly 
be decided in the affirmative by an overwhelming ma- 
jority. Sucli famous thinkers, even in ancient times, as 
Zoroaster, Xenophon, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Cicero, 
and numerous otliers, furnish eloquent w^ords in support 



I:Nr.MORTATJ rv. 13^> 

of tlie belief in a future life, and whose opinions are 
certainly entitled to as much weight as those we have 
just had under review. As to the poets, their name is 
legion, and with only a few insignificant exceptions, 
they stand in solid phalanx in defense of the beautiful 
doctrine of man's immortality. 
Says Richard H. Dana: 

''Oh, listen, maul 
A voice witliin us speaks the startling word, 
'Man, thou shalt never die I' Celestial voices 
Hymn it around our souls/' 

Rev. Di'. Guthrie offers us a noble sentiment in 
these words: 

"1 live for those that love me, 
Tor those that love me true, 
For the Heaven that smiles ahove me 
And waits my coming too.'' 

Lydia Jane Peisson was certainly inspired l)y a 
most comforting liope Avhen she wrote: 

'HVe feel as if a breath might put aside 
The shadowy curtains of the spirit land. 
Revealing all the loved and glorified 
That Death has taken from Affection's band." 

Better than the idea that ''thought is a form of 
force" is the glowing verse of T. W. Parsons : 
' 'Belie V* St thou in eternal things:^ 
Thou knowest in thy inmost heart, 
Thou art not clay; thy soul hath wings, 
And what thou seest is but part."" 

HoAv inspiring are the words of Jedediah Hunt : 
'•Broadcast, in nature's wide expanse. 
Unnumbered worlds like gems are set. 
And beam as beacons to enhance 

Some dawning glories, distant yet; 
But in the scale which weighs the whole. 

How far transcends one human soul I 
For all those worlds may fade away. 



134 Latest Intkkprktations. 

And sink in dark forgetful night; 
But spirit, born of endless day, 

Will flourish in unfading light; 
Coeval with the life of Him 
Who rules the highest cherubim." 
Better tlian Job's doleful complaint that "man lyeth 
down and risetli not," is the vigorous thought of Lord 
Byron : 

'^Immortality o'ers weeps 
All pains, all tears, all time, all fears — and peals 
Like the eternal thunders of the deep 
Into my ears this truth — Thou liv'st forever!" 

No sooner has the great Apostle of Doubt told us 
that thouglit is one of the transformations of bread, 
than we listen with gladness to tlie hopeful language of 
Alfred Tennyson : 

"I trust I have not wasted breath; 
I think we are not wholly brain, 
Magnetic mockeries." 
Who does not joyfully turn from David's utterance 
of despair, that "the dead praise not the Lord" to such 
a sentiment as that which comes fi-om Barton Booth : 
^'Love, and his sister fair, the Sou), 

Twin-born, from heaven together came; 
Love will the universe control, 

When dying seasons lose their name; 
Divine abodes shall own his power 

When time and death shall be no more." 
Harriet Martineau's position is unique. Claiming 
not to desire a future life, she stands almost alone among 
thoughtful and hopeful beings. Her mental condition, 
if not abnormal, is certainly exceptive. Is it safe to 
attempt to model tlie human heart after such a pattern? 
Surely she does not represent the prevailing spirituality 
of mankind, especially that of lier own sex. She speaks 
for herself alone, while Mrs. A. L. Barbauld thus speaks 
for the millions: 



Immortality. 135 

**Life! I know not wliat thou art, 
But know that thou and I must part; 
And when, or how, or where we met 
I ow^n to me 's a secret yet. 
Life! we've been long together. 
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather. 
'Tis hard to part when friends are dea r, — 
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, or tear; 
Then steal away, give little warning, 
Choose thine own time, 

Say not good-night — but in some brighter clime, 
Bid me good-morning." 
Vain man may audaciously leny all that he cannot 
demonstrate, and may talk about the impossibility of 
"separating mind and body," but still the soul within us 
gives hearty response to these words of M. J. Savage: 
•'Since love is all the joy of life. 
In earth below or heaven above, 
Somewhere, we cannot help but trust, 
God keeps for us the ones we love." 
Vain-glorious Napoleon may look for his "immor- 
tality in the pages of history" — a very questionable 
boon, especially in his case — but tlie firmer trust is that 
of E. S. Porter: 

•'We are not shadows: spirits live 
And will forever rise. 
To share what God alone can give 
In his fair Paradise. 

How harsh the question — how it grates upon the 
inner consciousness: "What do you know about the 
soul? Nothing whatever." 

I know not when, or how, or where, 

The soul came to my babe so fair. 

I only know — 'tis all I care — 

I gaze into his eyes, — 'tis there. 
But you will ask me for something besides the 
opinions of philosophers and the songs of j'oets on this 
momentous question. Is there no solid ai'gument in 



136 Latest IxXterpkktatioxs. 

support of the doctrine? Yes; much. But tlie trouble 
is, Nve rleinaixl too much. Emerson wisely says: ''We 
are much better believers iu immortality than we can 
give grounds for. The real evidence is too subtle, or is 
liigher than we can write doAvn in propositions." And 
James Martineau says truly : "We do not believe im- 
mortality because we have ])roved it, but we forever try 
to prove it because we believe it." The evidence of 
man's immortality is nu)stly, if not wholly, circumstan- 
tial. Spiritualists, it is true, claim to have direct 
evidence, — that of their own senses, — but, at present, it 
is not such as our courts of law are willing to accept. 

But let no one suppose that circumstantial evidence 
is necessarily weak and unreliable. In many instances 
it is jnoi'e trustwoi'tliy than direct evidence. In judicia- 
ry proceedings it takes very high raidx'. Human life has 
frequently been saved or forfeited wholly upon the 
strength of it. By its power alone the ends" of justice 
liave often l>een faithfully accomplished. The belief in 
immortality I'csts upon the strong foundation of great 
and numerous ]u-oba})ilities. Some of thes(^ we will 
now examine. 

First. If there be no innnortality, this life is iu)t 
only a sad failure but an inexj)licable evil, com])letely 
out of harmony witii the fitness of things. To believe 
tluit such is the case is to join with I^rior in saying: 
''He alon:' is blessed who never was 1)orn.'' Did any- 
one ever iiave twelve consecutive hours of unalloyed 
ha])])iness? Said Lord Bolingbroke; "There is so much 
ti'ouble in coming into the w^orld, and so much more, 
as well as meanness, in going out of it, that 'tis scarcely 
worth while to be here at all." Herodotus mentions a 
Tracian tribe who mourned when a child was born, and 
rejoiced when one died. In view of the hard circum- 



Immoktalitv. 187 

stances wliich attend the millions throuoh tlieir eartlily 
pilgrimage, this is not so monstrous as it appears. 
True, man has been defined as an animal who boughs ; 
but mirth does not always indicate happiness. 

'*We look before and after 
And pine for what is not : 
Our sincerest laughter 
With some pain is fraught." 

"Pleasure itself,'- says Montaigne, "is painful at the 
bottom." An old man once said: "When 1 was young 
I was poor; when old I became rich; but in each con- 
dition I found disappointment. When the faculties of 
enjoyment were, I had not the means ; w^hen the means 
€ame, the faculties were gone." 

Not only is worldly existence a painful mixture of 
good and evil, but thei'o is no possible way of ever hav- 
ing it otherwise. If men and women coidd be made so 
perfect that tlieir souls would be self-contained and at 
peace with nature and mankind, the task would no soon- 
er reach completion than they would be ready to die, 
giving tlieir place to infants, who, through ignorance 
and im})erfection, would stumlile and blunder very much 
like the children of six thousand or ten thousand years 
ago. If the children should liap])en to turn out good 
from the very beginning, we should hear Wordsworth 
.saying: "The good die first; and they whose hearts are 
dry as summei' dust, burn to the socket." God designed 
this world to be nothing but a nursery, a primary school, 
jR drill-ground, a ])lace of prepai'ation, and it is therefore 
quite consistent with the recpiirments of infinite wisdom 
that such a condition of things should exist as precltides 
the possibility of earthly perfection. We find there- 
fore just what we should expect to find, — not only pro- 
gression but retrogression. Anything to keep us battling, 



138 Latest Intkkpketations. 

overcoming, growing. Families grow up, become great, 
and then recede into obscurity. Princes trace their 
descent back to slaves, and their line finally ends 
where it began. Earth is mostly re-|)oj)ulated by men 
and women who have moie blood and muscle than poet- 
ry or philosophy. This oj)erates to check intellectual 
progression. The meaning of it all is that the powers 
wdiich be do not aim to establish human perfection on 
this mundane sphere. To my mind, this state of things 
is in exact accordance with deep wisdom, and points un- 
mistakably to a glorious hereafter. As an end, this life 
is a monstrous absurdity. As a means, looking toward 
a grander condition of existence, nothing could be more 
admirable. 

"'Aye, what is it all, if this life be all, 
But a draught to its dregs of a cup of gall, 
A bitter round of the rayless years, 
A saddening dole of wormwood tears, 
A sorrowful plaint of the spirit's thrall, 
The grave, the shroud, the funeral pall,^ 
This is the sum, if this life be all." 

But it is not all. At least the evidence, so far as 
presented, leads us plainly to this conclusion. 

Second. We find ourselves endowed with longings 
and aspirations which are out of all proportion to the 
possibilities of this present life. Suppose an embryotic 
bird could think, we might fancy it as questioning itself 
in this manner : "Why am I im])risoned in this narrow^ 
shell? Little feet have 1, but there is no place here to 
run ; a beak has been given to me, but there is no food here 
which requires its exercise; eyes I have, but there is 
nothing here to see; and tender wings are folded about 
me, but how can I ever fiy in such a place as this ?" 
But wait! One day the shell bursts asunder and the bird 
comes forth to learn the stranoe truth that it was not 



Immortality. 189 

made for its narrow teneinent, not made for life witliin 
tlie walls, but for the larger life outside, where, in the 
glorious effulgence of a noonday sun, it can spread its 
wings beneath the blue canopy of heaven and soar into 
the great shining heights, filling all nature with song 
and joy. It must be so with the soul. As compared 
with the life to which it is called, its present environ- 
ments are prison walls. Raphael expresses the same 
idea: "Xaught that has been written is truly, really 
beautiful, and the heart of man never discloses its best 
and most divine j)ortion. It is im])0ssiblel The instru- 
ment is of flesh, and the note is of Are." To look care- 
fully and prayerfully at the best within us is a sure way 
to recognize that which is endless. "Who reads his 
bosom reads immortal life." 

Third. The supreme importance of the doctrine is 
at \^?i^\. prima facie evidence that it rests on a founda- 
tion of truth. Figuier does not overstate the case in 
aflirming that ''Civilization, society and morals are like a 
string of beads whose knot is the belief in the immor- 
tality of the soul ; break the knot, and the beads scat- 
ter." Indeed, he might find room for other and yet 
more precious beads upon this imaginary string. Prove 
to me that there is no immortality, and with most un- 
blushing assurance I Avill undertake to show that there 
is no God, no godliness, no spirit, no spirituality, no 
ChjTst, no Christianity, no beauty of truth, no loveli- 
ness of virtue, no worthy authority, no permanent 

'merit, and no o-enuine rio:hteousness. Lord Bvron is 
represented to have said^: "If the hope of immortality 

is false, it is worth more than the world's best truth.' ^ 
It is hard to conceive that we should have been placed 

in an universe where a falsity is the most useful and 
charming object we possess. Referring to immortality. 



140 LaTIvST In rKIlPRKTATIONS. 

Bayard Taylor thus s])oke : "-l could not su])))ort life if 
I did not believe it. I could not accon)])]ish my work. 
I have noticed, too, that when an artist ceases to believe 
in immortality he no longer ])aints fine pictures." Man's 
superior wortli has little basis, unless he ])()ssesses a per- 
manent quality. If he is a creature of time only, he 
does not differ essentially from other animals, except in 
being the most inconsistent, most vain, and most de- 
ceived of them all. Copernicus, in dedicating his work 
to Po])e Paul Til., confesses that he was brought to 
a belief in the sun's central position by the feeling that 
there shouhl be symmetry in the universe. By the same 
token, we are made to feel that a futui'e life awaits our 
as] )i ring souls. Moral symmetry recpiires it. The bal- 
ance l)etween (piestions and possible answers must not 
be destroyed. This life has asked more (piestions than 
this life could ever answer. Paternity will be required to 
perform ihe task. Unless we can ha\ e that, we sliall 
ne\er be able to say, as tlie woman did wdio foi* the first 
time looked upon the ocean, "She was glad for once in 
her life to see something which there was enough of." 

Foui'th. The inde|)endent action of mind is suiJi- 
cient to show that it is not wholly identified with the 
l)ody. From an article in the Edinburg I^eview I (juote 
as folloAvs : ''Sleep walkers have been known, who could 
not only walk, and perform all ordinary acts in the dark 
as well as in the light, but who went on writing or read- 
ing Avithout interruption, though an opaque substance — 
a book or a slate — was interposed, and would dot the i's 
and cross the t's with unconscious correctness, without 
any use of their eyes." Persons who ha\e been resusci- 
tated from drowning bear witness that their minds were 
never more intensely active than at the near ai)proach of 
death, when the bodilv functions had all but ceased to 



rM>rOin ALITY. 141 

operate. \'^i(*t()r Hugo at eighty years of age declared 
that he felt the everlasting youth within him. The 
snows of winter were on his head but the bloom and 
freshness of summer possessed his soul. On another occa- 
sion he writes: ''It seems as though, at the a])proach of a 
certain dark hour, the light of heaven infills those who 
are leaving the light of earth." 

Tliere is no middle ground between the doctrine of 
immortality and the docti'ine that mindless force rules 
the universe. We must either be spiritists for time and 
eternity, or be materialists while we li\e, — and nothing 
hereafter. Somehow, materialism gives no satisfactory 
explanation to the various plienomena of human exist- 
ence. All that the physical sciences can tell us is that 
man is a compound of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitro- 
gen, phosphoi-ous, calcium, sodium and small quantities- 
of other metals. Is it possible that he has nothing but 
metal in his thought, love, and worshi]>? Much the 
ofreater part of his brain mav be converted into water. 
Can water reason ? If so, the ancients who worshiped 
Xeptune had a very great and intelligent god. 

Fifth. An exact system of compensation, traces of 
which we find throughout the universe, necessitates im- 
mortality. Those who unjustly suffer must receive 
their final good. Those wdio ai-e born with the curse of 
crime upon them, and on whose vitals most painful dis- 
eases continually prey, giving the poor victim no peace 
l)y day or by night, from the cradle to the grave, would 
certainly be entitled to a future compensation in any^ 
universe over which an arch-demon did not preside, I 
knew a little innocent child who came into this world 
without feet or hands. During his young and tender 
years how painful it was to see him watch the other 
children at their play, and to hear him tell what he 



142 Latest Interpretations. 

Avould do, and liow nincli lie would enjoy when his 
hands and feet shonld grow. We knew that they wonld 
never grow, and yet we had not the heart to tell him so. 
If there be any God, and if he have any love, wisdom, 
and power, we can wait, the limbless little one can wait, 
and all will issue w^ell. 

With these five probabilities in favor of man's con- 
tinuous existence we rest the case. Tliey do not con- 
stitute a mathematical demonstration, but they furnish 
sufficient proof to convince most people who think deep- 
ly upon tlie subject. Indeed, the evidence, taken as a 
whole, is much stronger than that which we require con- 
cerning other matters of vital importance to our daily 
welfare. 

Some good people will be astonished, perha})s sad- 
dened, th:it I should have attempted to treat the subject 
of immortality without relying, first, last and through- 
out, on the Gospel, especially the resurrection of Christ. 
I reply that until men are convinced that the strongest 
probabilities lend support to the doctrine, they will not be 
likely to accept Christ's resurrection as a fact, and will 
derive no great comfort from Bible testimony. Most 
persons do not believe in immortality because of the 
events w^hich succeeded the crucifixion, but they believe 
that Joseph's tomb could not retain the blessed Jesus, 
because of their faith in immortality. 

The church has committed the grave error of trying 
to force a fact into the o])inions of men, before present- 
ino; the o-rounds on which the fact must rest. The Gos- 
pel has done its part in showing us the importance of 
faith. '^The dead are raised up" whenever we turn 
away from the grave and look upward to behold them. 
Our own dead return to us whenever our faith stands at 
the door of the soul and beckons them. Why has not 



Immortality. 148 

faith 'lone its perfect work? Why is immortality doubt- 
ed? Because of the false dogmas and silly notions witli 
which it has been associated. In the same flower-pot 
which contains tlie heavenly plant, grow noxious weeds. 
In ])ulling ui> these, the other has been uprooted. Christ 
taught, on a certain occasion, that it was better for 
wheat and tares to grow in the same field until tlie har- 
vest, than that the wheat should be endangered by seek- 
ing to destroy the tares. He thought it better that 
men should believe too much rather tlian not enouoh, — 
some falsity rather than no truth. But must we always 
have one evil or the other? Why not boldly attack the 
enemy which sows the tares ? Why not put a stop to weed- 
culture ? Because the world has been told that tliere is 
an endless hell, the belief in any hereafter has had to 
suffer. 

Theodore Parker had the good grace to say of the 
Universalists : "They are the only sect that teach the 
doctrine of immortality so that it will be no curse to the 
race to find it true." 

The ecclesiasticism which insists on the resurrection 
of our physical body is another of the hindrances in the 
work of establishing the universal faith. So also is the 
whole system of eschatology concerning a frightful "day 
of judgment," a formal post-mortem, post-resurrection 
trial, which, at the best, could be nothing but a farce, 
and then the awful and tragical sentence of the judge 
which shall separate forever the spotless saints from the 
black-souled reprobates. 

Again, even Heaven itself lias been often disfigured 
by coarse descriptions. Who would care to live forever 
if there is nothing to offer but "that sleepy Paradise, 
where souls, ranged on benclies, do nothing but gaze on 
the glory of God and chant his praises," and where, ac- 



144 Latest Intkhprktatioxk. 

cording to Dr. Jonathai] Edwards, ''the siglit of hell tor- 
ments will exalt the hapj)iness of the saints forever. 
When they see others of the same nature, and born un- 
der the same circumstances, plunged in such misery, and 
they so distinguished, oh, it will make them sensible how 
hap])y they are." For my own part I can fully sympa- 
thize with De Finod, who remarks: "Paradise'must be a 
tiresome place if it is peopled only by those saintly souls 
Avhose company we so dread here below." 

It is not well to attempt a minute description of tlie 
future life. If we coidd have no other conception of the 
sun than that obtained fi'oni comparing it with some- 
thing else, — which is the essence of description,— how un- 
worthy would that conception be. Of this one thing [ 
am certain, — God would not provide a Heaven for us un- 
less it was tit for us. There can be nothing sniall or 
mean in its appointments. 

After all, where but in our own mind shall be dis- 
covei-ed our real heaven ? 

•*A mind not to be changed by place or time. 
'J'he mind is its own place, and in itself, 
Can make a lieaven of hell, a hell of lieaven. 
To these words of John Milton may be added a stan- 
za from Thomas Percy. 

•'^Nly mind to me a kingdom is; 
Such perfect joy therein I find 
As far exceeds all eartlily bhss, 

That God and nature hath assigned." 
To be thus conditioned is to be free from doubt or 
fear respecting the future. To be consciously worthy of 
a great destiny is the best way to convince ourselves of 
its reality. Princess Elizabeth w^as right : — 
*^This is joy, this is true pleasure. 
If best things we make our treasure, 
And enjoy tliem at full leisure 
Evermore in richest measure." 



PROGRESSION 



PROGRESSION. 



Say not thou, what is the cause that the former days were 
better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning 
this. — Ecclesiastes vii. : 10. 

Mature, art, science, literature, manners, — every- 
thing, ill fact, except gray-haired theology, testifies to 
the wisdom of this text. Take the lessons of botany, 
for example. All of earth's multitudinous variety of 
roses can be traced back to the scantily-furnished, thorn- 
guarded wild rose. Flowers do not double their petals 
until carefully cultivated. Adam's button-hole bouquet 
must have been quite a sorry looking object, but, consid- 
ering that he did not possess a button-hole, it probably 
answered every purpose. Our garden plum is a descend- 
ant of a variety of the common sloe, or blackthorn, — a 
small, sour fruit. Our apples, fine enough and varied 
enough to satisfy the palate of an epicure, are nothing 
but a laborious and painstaking development of the orig- 
inally wild and bitter crab-ai)ple. If this was the fruit 
that Mother Eve ate, it is not surprising that evil conse- 
quences followed. The luscious peach of the present 
day is quite unlike the unwholesome production which 
formerly grew upon a shrub whose juice was so poison- 
ous that savages used it upon the points of their arrows, 
for the purpose of carrying sure death to their enemies. 
Wheat was once so nearly like tares, that some have 
supposed it had the same origin. We see, therefore, 
that the Garden of Eden, or first garden of the world, 



14S Latest Interpret a tions. 

i\'()»ikl present a very ])oor appearance, if brought into 
comparison with an ordinary farm of modern times. 

Zoology indicates the same wonderful degree of 
progress. If our first parents owned a horse, he must 
have had five toes to each foot, and must have been too 
unintelligent and intractable to draw a bushel of sour 
grapes from one end of his master's garden-patch to tlie 
other. 

To regard Adam as having led an indolent life is to 
forget that a single item of his busy career consists in 
giving names to all the animals that populate the earth. 
Three hundred and twenty thousand different kinds 
have already been described by zoologists, and yet we 
are not allowed to attach an additional cubit to Xoah'x 
ark. 

Moses was highly educated, as scholarship was 
ranked in his day, but in astronomy he could sit at the 
feet of most of our small boys and girls. Some weak 
intellects still think the sun is only six feet in diameter, 
and Joshua probably thought that he himself was consid- 
erably bigger than the sun ; and his orthodox friends are 
determined that this lofty claim shall be sustained, even 
though the heavens fall. He is still presented to us, 
therefore, as having ])ra(*tised the most remarkable 
''"bossism" on record. 

We now go in ships to the anti])()des, although Lac- 
tantius declared it to be impossible, and Augustine nn- 
scriptun;!, and Boniface of Metz, beyond the limits of 
salvation. 

First things are rude, coarse, uncouth. The first 
plow was a crooked stick. The first watch was as large^ 
as a tea saucer, and Richard Wallingford's clock had t<> 
be wound and regulated almost every hour. 

We find so much in Shakespeare that never grows 



l^KOGRESSION. 149 

old that we fancy lie must have lived and written only a 
few years ago. Poor man! How did he exist, when 
there was so little in the world. The odor of tea or 
coffee had not yet reached the English kitchen. As he 
was nineteen years old when tobacco first found its way 
into Great Britain, and as boys do not usually begin to 
establish foolish habits after that age, he probably never 
mixed his blood with nicotine. Forks (TkI not come into 
general use until lie was well along in life, so it is quite 
probable that he used his hngei's to handle his food, the 
same as other peo])le. Before the time of James 1., it 
was customary for wealthy persons who wei'C in^'ited out 
to dinner to cai'ry tlieir forks and spoons with them. 

Once it was thought that the Seven Wonders of the 
world would always retain their place of pre-eminence. 
Xow they are almost despised for their comparative in- 
significance. True, the Pyramids of Egypt attract ad-' 
miration on account of their massiveness, but the Mont 
Cenis tunnel is a far greater achievement in stone work. 
The Mausoleum by Artemesia (at Halicarnassus) for her 
deceased husband, King Mausolus, was a great piece of 
art, but a Greenwood, or a Mount Vernon, cemetery, 
where tliousands of common people receive stately mon- 
uments, is a much greater triumph of civilization. The 
temple of Diana in P^phesus, built by Asiatic states, with 
its numerous Parian marble columns, was worthy of its 
fame, but as one of the Seven Wonders it is eclipsed by 
any modern observatory, where, by telescopic lenses, the 
heavens are seemingly brought almost within the grasp 
of man. Babylon, with its mighty walls and elaborate 
hanging gardens, as planned by Nebuchadnezzar, was a 
marvelous object of architecture, but a modern city 
with its billions of dolla^-s' worth of treasure, and which 
doesn't need any wall whatever to protect it, is the real 



150 Latest Intp:rpuetations. 

Avonder. The Colossus fit Rhodes, or statue of A])()lIo, 
must give place to the Brooklyn bridge. We admit 
that the statue of Ju]>iter Olympus, made of gold and 
ivory, by Phidias, was something to study and remember; 
but the man who can now stand on America's shore and 
hold converse with his brother in P^urope by means of a 
submarine cable is a greater than Jupiter of old. Com- 
ing to the last of the Seven Wonders, Pharos at Alexan- 
dria, by Ptohmiy Philadel[)hius, — a beautiful light-house 
of white marble, in which a fire was kept burning night 
and day — we must still disparage the ancients, by i-ef er- 
ring to our electric illuminations by which their brightest 
flame could have been made to cast a heavy shadow. 

Our material ])rogress has been all that could be de- 
sired. The former times are not better than these. 
During a period of seven hundred yeai's of Roman bisto- 
ury, there were but three short intervals when Avar was 
not raging. In those seven centuries how little was 
done toward human advancement! How is it now? 
Someone has recently Avritten : '•'I am an old man ; yet 
in material things T have seen the creation of a new 
world. I am contemporary with the railroad, the tele- 
graph, the steamship, the photograph, the sewing machine, 
the steam plow, the friction match, gas light, chloi'oform, 
nitro-glycerine, the monitor, the caloric engine, the Cal- 
ifornia gold discoveries, gutta percha, canned fruit, the 
electric light, the telephone, etc.'* All in one life-time! 
Methuselah was nine hundred and sixty-nine years old 
when he died, but the human progress of which he had 
been witness was less than that which, in these modern 
times, IS crowded into as many days. 

Now, the singular thing is that the religious world 
still sleeps in the arms of conservatism. It is the one 
great exce])tion to a gei^eral rule. We do not deny that 



P[r> rRESSION. 151 

the cliureh, ns a wliole, has made ])r()L!:i-ess, hut it has al- 
ways been made in spite of its own most vi^oi-ous ])ro- 
test. Wliat new idea lias it reeeived for linnd reds of 
years wliich has not been f( reed njion it fi'.)ni witliont? 
Sinee tlie time of Galileo nntil now, what new thouglit 
or interpretation has the ehnivh aeee])ted whieli had not 
been previously expounded by ''iniidels,*' ''■])hi^)S()])her8," 
"reprobates," "sclent iiic skeptics," "free-thinkers," "ra- 
tionalists," or the like ? And how^ ill-natured and ill-be- 
haved it has alw^ays shown itself in res])ect to those who 
have sought to benefit it with new light ! How it has 
kicked and squirmed like a spoilt child, when a new 
creed, or some slight modification of an old one, lias 
been proposed for Its acce))tance. Even the docti'ine of 
God's all-conquering love, or Christ's complete a ietory, 
which would seem to be rather acceptable to any tender 
and loving heart, has been spurned with bitterest con- 
tempt, while its advocates have been misrepresented and 
vilified as a matter of religious duty. 

Has Dr. Duncan spoken in vain? "There is a pro- 
gressive element in religion. It is a mistake to look up- 
on our fathers as our seniors. They are our juniors. 
The church has advanced wonderfully since its founda- 
tions were laid." 

A conservative, pure and simple, is one who is 
bound hand and foot to the stopping post of a dead gen- 
eration. Douglas Jerrold describes him as a man "who 
will not look at the new moon, out of respect for that 
^ancient institution,' the old one." 

Some persons work a faithful horse till he is no 
longer serviceable, and then, out of mistaken kindness, 
prolong his miserable existence several years, "for the 
good he has done." No doubt that Lutherism, Calvin- 
ism, Knox ism and Edwardsisni have done some good, as 



^52 Latest iNTKiiiMiKi ations. 

well as ;i (leal of iiiisc-liicf, hut how iiumy generatious 
oiigjjt tliey to he hoarded and nursed and lodged "for 
the i^ood they have done?" The time has eoine wheu 
their room is hetter than their eompany. 

Is it not true that the man Avho virtually murdered 
Michael Servetus leans today against many an evangeli- 
cal^ ]>uli)it, ])ointing his finger of stone to the Five 
Points,— not of New York city, where actual Christian 
work has been accomplished, but to his pet dogmas,— 
•'original sin or total depravity, election or predestina- 
tion, particular redemption, effectual calling, and perse- 
verance of the saints?" 

Most churchmen are like a traveller pursuing a road 
where a high board fence occupies either side^ of tlie 
way. If, j)erchance, he pauses a moment to peep through 
a crevice, and catches a glimi)se of the glorious land- 
scape, the unbounded sunlit fields, the far-reaching, wide- 
spreading horizon, where '' hills peej^ o'er hills and Alps 
on Aljis arise," his conservative companions pull at his 
sacerdotal robes, w^arning him back from this charmino- 
but dangerous outlook, lest he be tempted to scale the 
fence at a single l>ound and hie away to the larger liber- 
eity, the richer and more ex]>ansive life. 

Wendell Phillips was not far from right when he 
said : "What is fanaticism today is the fashionable creed 
tomorrow, and trite as the multiplication table a ..week 
after." At first, the question is, "Can any good come 
out of Xazareth?" and afterward the declaration is in- 
sisted on that no good has ever comeirom elsewdiere. 

if, as the evangelical churches teach, man started 
j»erfect and fell from the heights, if, in the former times, 
the Almighty condescended to talk face to face w^ith his 
cliildren, if he daily performed miracles before them, 
iiUi] constructed their j)olitical laws and wrote their 



Phogkessiun. 158 

books, then our text is wrong, and thos^e who ask wh^ 
the former days were better than these inquire wisely. 
But, if it be as science and pliilosophy teach, if man- 
kind has climbed upward from the beginning, if, as Mr. 
Beecher says, the fall of Adam was a fall upstairs, then 
the authority of the past cannot be justly imposed 
upon us, for the best word of yesterday is not so good 
as the best word of today, even though that word was 
proclaimed by the ancient patriarchs, — mere boys, com- 
paratively speaking, whom nobody thought of address- 
ing except by their first name. 

"Better is the end of a thing than the beginning," 
says one of the Bible writers, and this should teach us 
to look forward and not backward for the truest and 
most perfect. 

**Heiieet'ortli my heart shall sigh no more 
For olden time and holier shore," 

"'[ do by no means advise you,'' says Chesterfield, 
*'to throw away your time in ransacking, like a dull an- 
tiquarian, tlie minute and unimportant parts of remote 
and fabulous times. Let blockheads read what block- 
heads wrote." John Bunyan said, in speaking of a cer- 
tain act, ''Before I will do it I will stay here till the 
moss grows over my face." Church people have taken 
;i similar stand in regard to accepting better view^s of 
God and man, — until the moss has actually grown all 
■over them. While claiming to be always ready to re- 
<jeive new light, and even praying for more knowledge, 
they have practically occu|>ie(l the position of the 
Scotchman: *'l am ()])en to conviction," said he, ''but I'd 
like to see the man that can convince me." These theo- 
logical troglodytes have changed nothing and modified 
nothing except the good motto, "Be sure you are right 
iind then oo ahead." This thev have made to read, "Be 



154 Latest Intekpretattons. 

sure you are where you wei-e, and then stay where you 
are." They agree with Cowper that 

''To follow foolish precedents and wink 
With both our eyes is easier than to think." 

A travelleq- tells us that he found people in Arkan- 
sas who strenuously opposed the inti-oduction of steam 
cars, on the ground that they would frighten game out 
of the country. This fear finds its ]i)arallel in those 
churches which would block the wheels of progress in 
the interest of that which it were a clear gain to lose. 
You have heard of the ])ris()ner who ))rotested against 
having his prison wall pulled down, because it would in- 
volve the loss of the little chink through whi(^h he had 
been accustomed to receive light. Fish confined in a 
glass globe would probably think the world was coming 
to an end if the glass were suddenly broken and they 
were spilt into the sea. 

We hear about a new orthodoxy that has recently 
arrived. Many thanks for anything new. But when 
we examine the stranger, we confess to a feeling of dis- 
appointment. Xew orthodoxy, as a general rule, is 
nothing but old orthodoxy with its mouth shut. Uni- 
versalists are invited to forget their past experience with 
it, and to come boldly into its presence. During the 
week the animal is ke])t carefully muzzled, and on most 
of the Sal)baths. Occasionally, howevei-, it is unmuzzled 
for a brief breathing spell, and then the slumbering con- 
servatives open wide theii- lustreless, sanctimonious eyes, 
and piously smile inside and out. 

In defence of standard evangelicism, it is frequently 
said that the majority of Chi-istians still believe in it,, 
while liberal sects are comparatively small. Why should 
it not be so, since conservatism represents the dead, and 
progression the living? The woi-ld can always count 



Progkkssion. 155 

more by lookiiiii- backward than by looking forward. 
The representatives of deceased hosts are made quite 
useful in lielping to swell majorities, just as a political 
party has occasionally carried an election by managing, 
in some way, to get dead men to vote. Ever since the 
time ot* Christ, veritable truth-seekers have always been 
in the minority. He who fears that the minority is 
wrong simply because it is not the majority, has read 
history to no purpose, and is not acquainted with Jesus, 
the despised. Paul w\as not ashamed to be ranked with 
the unpopular few. ''For this I confess unto thee," he 
says, "that after the way which they call heresey, so wor- 
ship I the God of my fathers." Again he says : "Breth- 
ren, I count not myself to have apprehended ; but this 
one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, 
and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 
I press toward the mark for the pi-ize of the high calling 
of God in Christ Jesus." And what is this prize? What 
did Christ propose for man's spiritual profit? What 
was his mission ? I will not ask the church, but take his 
owm words in reply. "I am come," he says, "that they 
might have life, and that they might have it more abun- 
dantly." To abound more and more in all the rich treas- 
ure of the soul is to be a disciple of Christ. To pi'ogress 
is to follow him to the mountain tops. Xot to progress 
is to remain below while he is speaking above, and to 
breathe the dead and heavy air which settles in earth's 
deep places. The trouble with Christian conservatives 
is that they entirel}^ reverse the excellent rule of Saint 
Paul, and forget nothing which is behind, and reach 
forward to nothing which is before. The cause of 
this is spiritual laziness. It is easier to be on the 
chariot seat than to be in the thills, and much safer to 
be cari'ied in an and^ulance than to occupy the front 



156 Latkst Intkkpk stations. 

rank anions- a courageous soklierv. ''Those wlio lead 
progressiou's van, must bear tlie brunt of l)attle, dying 
in advance of the heavy columns that slow but sure are 
marching on tlieir trail." 

It may be asked wliether there is anything in these 
ideas that can be ]>ractically applied in the great work 
of saving the world from sin. Certainly: it is not by 
miraculous conversion, or sudden regeneration, but by 
persistent advancement, constant change for the better, 
that the soul shall be made fit, at last, for the kingdom 
of righteousness. Sir John Cutler had a pair of black 
worsted stockings which his maid darned so often witli 
silk tliat they finally became a ])air of silk stockings. 
Thus, a coarse-spun character can be made tine, not by the 
excitement of a I'cvival meeting, where spiritual washing 
and mending is taken in, and where customers can have 
theii- work done ^^vhile they wait," but*l)y weaving into 
the sonl from day to dav and from vear to vx-aj* the silk- 
en thread of eternal truth. Along the line of gradual 
development, and along that line alone, is true maidiood 
or womanhood made possible. There it is 

"That men may rise on stepping stones 
Of their dead selves to liigher things." 

Pi'of. Wyman says: "It is a well known jjhysiologi- 
cal fact that living beings may be slowly transferred to 
new^ and widely different conditions without injury; but 
if the same change is suddenly made, they perish." 
This law is equally applicable to spiritual concerns. In- 
stantaneous changes in one's character are im])racticable. 
Real changes are the work of \ears. 

Not only does the present life call for constant |)ro- 
gression, but the soul's future will be likewise condi- 
tioned. The j)roblem of universal salvation finds its 
solution in this important fact. All nuMi will be finally 



Progression. 157 

saved, not because the Oinnipotent Powei* will taketlieni 
to himself, whether or no, either with or against their 
will, l)ut because a progressiAe universe, packed witli 
progressive iniiuenees for good, must sooner or later 
accomplish the divine desire. Man's freedom will be as 
inviolate in the next life as it is in this. He is subject 
to iniiuenees here, he Avill be subject to them there. 
The difference is that the divine influences of the immor- 
tal state will fall directly upon the spirit, instead of hav- 
ing to be drawn through the world, the flesh and the 
creeds, as at present. 

The theology of progression should teach us the 
philosophy of reformation. The way to abolish sin- 
ful practices is not to abolish any part of man's nature, 
but to put him in the way of outgrowing them. If pious 
people do not like the amusements of the day, the very 
best thing they can do is to bend their stiff backs and 
furnish a better kind. If we detest a liquor saloon, the 
wisest course we can pursue is to throw open the door^ 
of some other resort, only do not let us insist that it 
shall be a prayer-meeting or nothing. I once lived in a 
city that tried the experiment of prohibition. In order 
to keep young men out of club rooms and dangerous 
places, the well-meaning Christian ladies of all the 
churches banded together, rented a large, airy apartment^ 
put an elegant carpet on the floor, blossoming plants in 
the lace-curtained window^s, singing birds in gilded cages, 
while at a well appointed counter a good cup of coffee 
could at any time be procured, besides various religious 
books, ])apers, and magazines. White-haired matrons 
and aged spinsters presided over all the details, main- 
tained the solemu dignity of the good cause, and were 
an absolute safeguard against any impropriety. Each 
day a particular hour was set apart for gospel singing 



158 Latest Intekpkktatioxs. 

and praying. Who came? Wlio were the patrons of 
this enter})rise? Clergymen, deacons, class leaders, and 
bores. Whether they were reformed or not is quite 
doubtful. That which young people, and some old ])eo- 
ple, want, and will have, as a substitute for amusements 
is — amusements. Establish your coffee-rooms or tem- 
perance parlors, but if you exi^ect they will ever be 
patronized by the very persons whom they are designed 
to benefit, put a placard on the door saying, '^No saints 
admitted." Great wrongs exist; but Avhen wrong rem- 
edies are applied to them, they become greater than 
ever. In this respect, man commits his most egregious 
blunders. For three hundred years digitalis has been 
given as a depressant of the heart, and physicians have 
been taui>ht to avoid pivino- it when the heart was weak. 
But at this late day come Bernard and others and show 
by.actual experiment that the drug in question is a heart 
tonic and stimulant. Just such mistakes have been 
made in dealing with man's moral nature. For more 
than three hundred years wrong remedies have l)een ad- 
ministered. The evil tendencies in human nature have 
been stimulated by the very medicines which s])iritual 
physicians had depended on for depressing them. When 
all else has been tried, it will be found that no miracle, 
no su])ernatural conversion, no presto effected change, 
will cure the sin-sick soul, — nothing but far-reaching, all- 
comprehensive progression. The day of judgment it- 
self is nothing but a long period of progressiveness. 

Paul tells us that he was caught up into the third 
heaven. I like this numerical adjective: it belongs to 
an infinite series. The thii'd heaven is not far from the 
bottom. It savors strongly of earth. Millions of them 
are farther on. 

There is nothino* for us to do but to move forward 



Progressiox. 159 

and upAvard, taking humanity with us. "The eyes of 
man," says Emerson, "are set in his forehead, not in his 
hindhead." The Rev. Mr. Mangasarian, one of the la- 
test converts to the requirements of progress, offers this 
line sentiment: "I am not as great a man as John Calvin 
or Jonathan Edwards, but you must remember I am 
standing on their shoulders, and a dwarf on the shoul- 
ders of a giant can see farther than trie giant." 

Wlien the storm cloud has pei*fornied its mission, 
God does not keep it in the sky for the good it has done, 
but hides it in the invisible air in order that the heavens 
may shine through and bless the earth. In this way we 
should treat the theology of the past. Long ago it 
spent its force. Xothing remains but its sombre shade, 
the uncanny ghost of the Has Been. Let the bright sun 
of eternal truth shine fully upon it and it will disappear. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes presents true gospel jn 
these words : 

•'Build tliee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

xls the swift seasons roll ! 

Leave the low-vaulted past; 

Let each new temple, nobler than the last. 

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 

Leaving thine out-grown shell by life's unresting sea." 



REVELATION. 



REVELATION. 



Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teachiiisj, 
for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteous- 
ness ; that the man of God may be complete, furnished complete- 
ly unto every good work. — 2 Timothy iii. : 16. 

As an instance of the dishonest treatment to which 
the Bible has been subjected by its friends, it may be 
mentioned that for more than two hundred and fifty 
years, our text has been rendered as follows: "All Scrip- 
ture is given by inspiration of God," etc. Theological 
teachers knew, or ought to have known, that King James' 
version was wrong, but this knowledge was not general- 
ly given to the people. I suspect that if the real motive 
of this duplicity were probed to the bottom, the thing 
which men call expediency would be found there. With 
honest purpose, dishonesty has been suffered. It was 
thought, and not without reason, that if men were told 
that, neither in this text, nor any other, did the Bible 
claim to be an inspired book, the volume would cease to 
be regarded with that reverential awe which had been 
formerly shown toward it. In a quiet way, modern 
Protestantism has practically adopted the motto of an- 
cient Catholicism: "The end justifies the means." Doubt- 
less some effects have been produced by preaching the 
errors of the authorized version of Scripture, which 
cannot result from the more truthful statements of the 
Oxford version. For the sake of these effects, the for- 
mer version will continue to remain popular. King 



164 Latest Interpret a tion«. 

James liimself was informed of tlie numerous mistakes 
which liis translators had made, but he had no conscien- 
tious scruples against having the work sent forth to the 
M^orld as the Word of God. But we are not living 
under his reign. The motto of the present administra- 
tion is, "Tell the truth." 

Rev. Washington Gladden presents us with some 
thoughtful considerations on this subject which are 
worthy of great respect. He says: "When we come up- 
on a verse or a clause that we know is not in the original 
Greek, w^e ought to say so. When I know that certain 
words found in Matthew or in Luke are an interpolation, 
that they were not wiitten by Matthew or Luke, w^hat 
right have I to give them out as the words of Matthew 
or Luke? To do that w^ould be to handle the word of 
God fraudulently. Yet a great many persons are in- 
clined to practice concealment about this matter, from 
the fear that the Bible will lose its authority among the 
people, if the truth about it comes to be known. There 
is a certain, petty notion of the verbal and literal infalli- 
bility of the Bible which would certainly suffer if the 
truth were frankly told; and the fear is, that, with the 
breaking down of this notion, the faith of man in the 
divine character of the book w^ould be greatly weakened. 
Such a fear is dishonorable at once to the book. =^ =^ * 
It dishonors God to teach that his kingdom can be pro- 
moted by concealment and misrepresentation. The idea 
that it is not safe to tell the people the facts about the 
Bible is of a piece with the old idea encountered by 
Wyclif — that it is not safe to give the people the Bible 
itself. If it is right that they should have the Bible, 
then it is right that they should have all the facts about 
the Bible — about the way it w^as written and compiled 
and the manner of its transmission through the eentur- 



Re vela Tios . 165 

ies, and the errors, be the same more or less, that have 
crept into the text/' Again, he snys: "There are those 
who know very little of the Word of God that is in the 
Bible, and whose lives show no trace of its sanctifying 
power, but Avho are full of a kind of superstitious ven- 
eration for the book. They seem to regard it as a sort 
of charm or talisman that it is well to have about 
them. The late, but not much lamented, Tweed read it 
every day for so many minutes in prison, and occasion- 
ally looked up from what seemed to be his devotions, to 
swear at his attendant. Doubtless he regarded the book 
as a sort of fetish, and tlie fixing his eyes upon its pages 
for a little while e\ ery day was a meritorious observ- 
ance." 

What is revelation ? It is "the art of revealing di- 
vine truth."" It is "tliat which is revealed by God to 
men." The strictest theologians are unable to add any- 
thing to these definitions. No book, therefore, is neces- 
sarily required to complete the act. Revelation is one 
thing, the writing of Scri])ture another. The former is 
divme, the latter is human. 

What is inspiration? The inspired writers do not 
undertake to say. Uninspired Webster sets it down as 
"Specifically, a supernatural, divine influence on the 
prophets, apostles, or sacred writers, by Avhich they were 
qualified to communicate moral or religious truth with 
authority; a miraculous influence which qualifies men to 
receive and communicate divine truth." Even if this 
definition is correct, we are still free to conclude that 
inspiration may be something quite different from the 
Bible. 

What is the Bible? The Bible itself does not tell— 
does not even mention the word. The dictionary says it 
is "the sacred volume, in which are contained the revel- 



166 Latest Interpretations. 

at ions of God, tlio principles of Christian faith, and the 
rules of i)ractice." Tliis definition is as clear as we are 
likely to get, and yet it is wonderfully vague. It seems 
that we are in possession of a book, or rather a multi- 
l)licity of books bound together, dating back to various 
and widely different periods, and bearing marks of a 
numerous authoi-ship, which contains revelations from 
God. It is not denied that the same volume also con- 
tains things which are not revelations from God. How 
shall we separate the one from the other? This is the 
great difficulty. Catholicism looks it squarely in the face 
and consistently says: ''Before the Bible can be regard- 
ed as divinely authoritative, it must be submitted to a 
divine authority for examination and interpretation. 
The Catholic church, through its divinely appointed 
agents, is that authority." When we observe the kind 
of work which Protestants do in trying to handle the 
Bible, and the ten hundred conflicting dogmas they de- 
rive from it, we wonder if, after all, they are very much 
wiser than the })apal hierarchy. 

If we will only treat the Bible honestly and ration- 
ally as we treat other books, submitting it to the same 
rules of criticism which ai)ply to general history and to 
moral and religious teaching, we shall find that the Holy 
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are not only 
worthy of careful and prayerful study, but tliat they an- 
swer a human need which jiothing else could supply. 

In the first place, we must candidly acknowledge 
before the people that verbal ins])iration has no support 
in reason or authority. An intensely human tendency, 
greatly to be de[)recated, is that of exaggeration. The 
Bible abounds with it. To cite a few instances: "The 
nations raged, the kingdoms were moved: He uttered 
his voice, the earth nn^lted." "PI is lightnings lightened 



liKVKLATIOX. 167 

the world: tlic e.irtli saw, and tivnibled. Tlio hills 
melted like wax at the presence of the Lord."" Again : 
''The sun shall he turned into darkness, and the moon 
into blood, before the day of tlie Loi'd come, that gi'eat 
and notable day/' 

Christ is re})resented as saying to tlu' apostles that 
tliey should be hated of all men. Some men do not 
liate them. ''Whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be 
in danger of the hell of fire." Paul attached so little 
importance to this warning that he did not hesitate to 
call men fools who questioned the doctrine of the res- 
urrection. If it be so very wicked to call a man a fool, 
how is it such a great virtue to regard him as l)eing totally 
depraved — the biggest kind of a fool? Again, Christ is 
reported as saying: "If any man cometh unto me, jnid 
hateth not his own father and mother, and wife and 
children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life, 
also, he cannot be my disciple." Unless this language 
is extravagant, the Master has very few disciples today, 
and these few would be a disgrace to any cause. "Ye 
are of your father, the devil" is accredited to Christ, but 
at the present time, it would not pass for a Christian 
utterance. "He that hath no sword, let him sell his gar- 
ments and buy one," is extravagant language for one 
who advocates non-resistance to evil. When Mark says 
that "all the city was gathered together at the door," he 
])robably exaggerates a little. Xow these citations are 
sufficient to show that the Scriptures are not free from 
extravagant statements. This being settled, why should 
one be called an infidel for believing that Avhat is said of 
Judas — that it had been good for him if he had never 
been born — may possibly be slightly exaggerated? If 
Jonah enlarged upon the truth when he said he was in 
hell forever, — namely, three days and three nights, — 



1G8 Latest Interpketatioxs. 

may not the term, "everlasting punisliment," be taken 
with some allowance? If the promise was made that 
the Abrahamic covenant should never come to an end, 
notwithstanding that it afterward ceased to exist, is it 
unlawful to suggest that those whose sin shall ''jievier be 
forgiven" may, nevertheless, exercise a slight hope, and 
repose some struggling trust in the infinite goodness of 
God and the universal character of Christ's mission? 

I aiTi aware that I am dealing with an argument 
which cuts both ways. It will be said that if "eternal 
punishment" is not to be taken in the largest possible 
sense, neither is "eternal life," which occurs in the same 
verse. But I know of no law which requires that one 
exaggeration shall be employed to balance anothej*. If 
"punishment" and "life" are essentially of the same na- 
ture, it may be reasonably affirmed that the qualifying 
adjective has the same degree of intensity. It is well 
known that the Greek word from which "everlasting," 
or "eternal," is scripturally derived, is sufficiently plastic 
to fit itself either to the finite or infinite, and may apply 
to a j>eriod of longer or shorter duration. Again, I 
shall be reminded that since the word "all" is sometimes 
biblically employed in an exaggerated form, we cannot 
postulate universal salvation on the ground that numer- 
ous texts set forth that "all" shall be saved. The point 
is well made. Language is such that there is no partic- 
ular passage of Scripture which proves beyond doubt 
the salvation of all mankind. Certainly, there is no 
passage which disproves it. This being the case, there 
is little or no use we can make of the Bible for doctrin- 
al purposes, until we go deeper than its words and dis- 
cover its general trend, its deverbalized spirit. As the 
Catholic must have something greater than the Bible, 
before the Bible itself can be mastered, so, also, must 



IvEVELATIOX. 169 

the Protestant. I like the idea of having a pope who 
dares to assert for himself an authority superior to that 
of books. A living soul should be hotter with divine 
truth than a dead page. Better a man than a manu- 
script. We should have more popes. One is not enough 
for earth's vast population. Perhaps one would be enough 
— for one : that is all. Evei-y person should be a pope 
unto himself. Unless the soul's inner light is greater 
than the light which is shed from texts, the Bible will be 
read to no purpose. 

The moment the dogma of verbal inspiration was 
surrendered, reason leaped into the throne of theology. 
Superstition received its death blow. As soon as a man 
comes to know that the language of the Bible is not 
supernatural, that it was not supei-naturally employed by 
any of its writers, that it is intensely human in all respects, 
and consequently erroneous in many particulars, he will 
believe no portion of it which does not square with his 
best convictions and most enlightened judgment. Eccle- 
siasts may deplore this, but it is irremediable. There is 
no middle ground between miraculous verbal inspiration 
.and theological self-dependence. To compel ''faith" to 
brido'e the chasm is a cruel outraoe on human nature. 
When scholarship forced the church to abandon the old 
idea of inspired language, a great deal more was involved 
in that abandonment than the Church, even yet, is will- 
ing to part with. The average minister still employs 
texts as though mere words were sacred, and weaves 
them into sermons and prayers with all the confidence of 
the middle ages. 

We fully believe in revelation. It is a larger fact 
than most people are wont to suppose. Max Muller, in 
his lectures uu tlic '-Sciences of JReligion," describes 
icight religions that have canonical books, to wit: Brali- 



170 Latest Inti:ui»retations. 

luiiiism, Zoroastriaiiism, IJiiddhisin, Mosaisni, Moliam- 
medaiiisni, Christianity, Confucianism, and Latoism; 
and says that the real problem is, not how a revelation 
is possible, but how a veil could ever have been drawn 
between the creature and the Ci'eator, intercej)ting from 
tlie human mind tlie rays of divine truth. We freely 
concede tliat the Bible is immensely superior to any 
other "sacred book;" yet this does not estop us from hold- 
ing that it is far hom perfect. Absolute truth is such a 
subtle essence that no form of words can hold it captive. 
The effervescence of the Li\'ing Water refuses to re« 
main in the earthen vessel. The delicate perfume of 
the heavenly blossom cannot be caught by the chemist's 
cunning art. When we hnxe said our best, the real 
truth is not wholly spoken. 'H'he Bible is a very worthy 
attempt, but a partial failure. Revelation is not con- 
fined to its few pages. 

''There is a lesson in each flower. 
A story in each stream and bovver; 
In every herb on which we tread 
Are written words which, rightly read, 
Will lead us from earth's fragrant sod 
To hope and holiness in God." 

The New York Independent is to be commended 
for this utterance : '*Truth is to be estimated by its in- 
trinsic worth, and not because it is found either inside 
or outside of the Bible. It is elevated al)0ve books and 
independent of all records." 

It is a legal maxim that "The life of tlie law is the 
reason of the law." In the largest possible sense this 
is true of God's law. Hence, in the most fearless man- 
ners reason must pass sentence on the Book. Even the 
new, or Oxford version, is unreliable in both form and 
substance. In 1 Cor. vii.: BG, Saint Paul is made to sanc- 
tion the most abominable incest, namelv, that, under 



ReA'K NATION. 171 

certain circinnstances, a man should nian-y liis own 
(iaugliter . We see, therefore, that tlie Bibh^, even in 
its modern form, is very much like a drug store wliere 
Avholesome medicines and deadly poisons occupy tlie 
same shelves. This is all very well if we can be assured 
tliat the clerks who handle the bottles and the |)atients 
who take the prescriptions are not dangerously ignorant 
or grossly careless. 

It is well to I'emember that the volume which we 
liave made into a fetich did not come by miraculous ap- 
pointment. If Christ had designed us to learn religion 
from a book, he, himself, would probably have written 
one. He did not e\'en command his disciples to write 
one, nor did he once intimate that one was coming in 
which the Word of God should be revealed. According 
to Rev. Samuel Davidson, D. D., no book of the Xew 
Testament was termed Scripture or deemed more sacred 
than other religious books before A. D. 170. Then, 
there was a great number of theological manuscripts, 
from which a volume could be compiled. The reasons 
why some came to be accepted and others rejected have 
never been given to the public. For example, the unin- 
spired authorities h ive rejected the Epistle of Barnabas, 
although the early churches accepted it as genuine, and 
Barnabas was "a good man and full of the Holy Ghost." 
And what can be said of Luke and Mark more than was 
said of Clement, "whose name is in the Book of Life," 
but whose Epistle is not in the sacred canon? He cer- 
tainly has as much right to be heard as that notable Old 
Testament author, of whom Dr. Adam Clarke says: 
"Who can read the account of idolatrous Solomon, who, 
from the whole evidence of the sacred history, died in 
his sins, without trembling?" The inference of this is 
that he whom God especially chose to lead mankind into 



172 LxVTEST Intekpketations. 

the paths of salvation is, himself, writhing in eternal tor- 
ment. Then, too, the various parts of our present Bible 
were not brought together without great differences of 
opinion, mucli bitter controversy, and considerable oppo- 
sition. Even so wise a man as Martin Luther rejected 
the valuable Epistle of St. James; and the scholarship of 
the church is still unsettled, concerning not only James, 
but Hebrews, Jude, Second Peter, Second and Third 
John, and the book of Revelation. Catholicism accepts 
the Apochrypha, the same as other books, while Prot- 
estantism, which, comparatively speaking, was born but 
yesterday, dares to tell the Mother Church to her face 
that she is all wrong in so doing. 

The removal of idols is a thankless task. People 
will say, Why tear down the Bible, unless you have 
something better to put in its place? We have some- 
thing better ; namely, the Bible itself — the Bible de-idol- 
ized — the inspired spirit in the place of the uninspired 
letter. Most persons would much rather hold to the 
views to which they have been accustomed than to ex- 
change tliem for absolute truth. A lady wrote to the 
Old Testament revisers an earnest plea against a change 
in one particular verse in Proverbs, because it had been 
a favorite, to quote her own words, "with both of my 
dear husbands who are now dead." Had the question 
been submitted to popular vote, it would have been de- 
cided to retain the closing words of the Lord's prayer in 
the new version of the New Testament, notwithstanding 
it is well known by biblical students that the phrase 
^'For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, 
forever, amen," is not in the original, dive us just wliat 
we have had, though truth falls, is the demand of most 
people. Give us the Bible as it has been, and all the 
opinions concerning it just as they are, even if we are 



Revelation. 173 

utterly ignorant of its contents, seems to be tlie luie and 
cry. One man tlioiight tlie good Book was so sacred 
that it was sacrilegious to revise it at all, yet he knew 
so little of what it contains, that he hunted all through 
it to find the text "Make hay while the sun shines." 

I have heard it preached that it is our duty to be- 
lieve the Bible, even in those instances where it plainly 
contradicts our reason and is clearly opposed to our 
common sense. We are asked to exercise the same kind 
of credulity that the ancient Greek did, to whom Wen- 
dell Phillips refers in his lecture on the Lost x\rts: A 
traveller one day met an old acquaintance and exchiim- 
ed: "Why, I heard that you were dead." 

"Well," answered the other, "you see that I am not 
dead." 

"I see nothing of the kind," replied the first speak- 
er, "for I would believe the man who told me a great 
deal quicker than I would you." 

This is not a bit more absurd than to be asked to 
believe a book a great deal quicker than we would our 
senses. 

Another anecdote given in the same lecture may be 
made to illustrate a point in the same connection : A man 
who was very desirous to know how he would look when he 
was dead, closed his eyes and then stood before the mir- 
ror, that he might see foi* himself what kind of a specta- 
cle he presented. Those who try to read the Bible, 
without depending on their natural reason and practical 
philosophy, belong to this man's tribe. 

Whenever the Scriptures are read for other purpo- 
ses than that of coming into spiritual communion with 
God, they are not holy to the reader. To read the book 
for history or for the sake of fitting one's self for con- 
troversy, is to read nothing but a common book. How 



174 Latest Inteim'kktatioxs. 

much of this is done. How little of real revelation is 
ever read ! 

"Do you ever make use of the l>il)le?" inquired a 
minister of a negro. "Yes, sir," was the reply, "I fre- 
quently strajj my razor upon it." 

In so doing, he i)ut it to a more honorable use than do 
those controversialists who peruse its })ages simply to find 
whetstones on which to sharpen their weapons of debate. 

"No," said the editor, pointing to a large file of 
books, "those are not for reading, but for reviewing."" 
The book of books is often treated in the same way. 
The worst of it is that the persons who i)retend to be so 
wondrous wise concerning the "infinitely superior mer- 
its" of the volume, get their o})inions ready-made from 
the "reviews." 

When will the common people learn that Protes- 
tantism puts the Bible into their own hands to do with 
as they please ? Priestcraft no longer owns it. A sharp- 
witted, but unscrupulous New England Yankee, hap])en- 
ing to be visiting in the West during the great overflow 
of the Mississippi, when thousands of cords of drift-wood 
were let loose, made a bargain with a gang of idlers to 
give them half the logs they would fish out and save. 
This enterprise netted him quite a large smm of money, 
simply because the laborers were ignorant of the fact 
that their employer had originally no more claim to the 
lost property than they themselves had. Thus have sec- 
tarian commentators and expounders of Scripture robbed 
the people of their just rights. They have put a "Thus 
saith the Lord" to their own opinions. Had they not 
made a muddle of the whole business by magnifying 
their different dogmas far above the spirit of truth, we 
might, i)erhaps, tolerate them on the ground of their hav- 
ing been at school somewhat longer than other people. 



Revelation. 175 

As it is, we will be bound by no commentary on earth. 
The advice which Prof. Agassiz gave to the students 
who accom[)anied liim on his scientific tour through Bra- 
zil was excellent : "Leave your books behind. We are 
to study nature first hand." In these words we find the 
key to the great naturalist's voluminous learning and 
wisdom. 

A million dollars would readily be given for an ori- 
ginal manuscript of the New Testament. It is best that 
there is none to be had for love or money. It w^ould be 
worshiped. Every pen-mark would be transferred bodi" 
ly to the mind and conscience of Christianity. The letter 
w^ould be exalted. The s})irit would suffer. The care- 
lessness or indifference of the early Christians, in neglect- 
ing to preserve the actual writings of Matthew, Mark, 
Luke or John, Paul, Peter, James or Jude, turns out 
most wisely. 

Inspiration is humanity's greatest truth. It says : 
"Lo, I am wdth you alway, even unto the end of the 
world." It accompanied the writing of the Bible, it 
must accompany its reading. As someone has said, we 
should be inspired to look through the book, not at it. 
"If a man looks through his telescope, then he sees 
worlds beyond ; but if he looks at his telescope, then he 
does not see anything but that." 

On some paper there are letters in water colors 
which are never seen until the paper is held up to the 
light. On other paper, there is invisible writing which 
nothing but the heat of fire can make legible. The Bi- 
ble contains many spiritual truths which w^e do not dis- 
cover until we hold the book up to the light of the eter- 
nal sun. Sometimes, alas, we must stand by the open 
door of the fiery furnace of affliction, in order that the 
Word of God mav be clearlv revealed to us. 



176 Latest Interpretations. 

In conclusion, is it not enough to satisfy all the de- 
mands of Christian reason, faith and conscience, when 
we believe "that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New 
Testaments contain a revelation of the character of God, 
and of the duty, interest, and final destination of 
mankind." There is no denying it, the grandest truths^ 
ever uttered by man are to be found in the Bible. If it 
be askefl how any one can be assured that lie has rightly 
separated truth from error, if both are contained in the 
same volume, it can only be answered in the words of 
the Book itself : "There is a spirit in man, and the in-- 
spiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." 



MIRACLES. 



MIRACLES. 



An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. 

—Matt. xii.:39. 
The old-fashioned "miracle" has disappeared from 
the Bible. In its place the new version gives us four 
words, namely: "wonder," "work," "sign," "power." 
None of these necessarily imply anything miraculous. 
While they take the place of "miracle," their popular 
meaning is radically different. At a single bound, the 
English Bible has gone far ahead of the Church. Yet, 
even in this advancement, it has merely overtaken Saint 
Augustine, who declared his disbelief in any event con- 
trary to nature. Jesus himself, as shown by his lan- 
guage in our text, deprecated the common demand of 
his age for an exhibition of the unnatural. Not only does 
he reproach those who ask for a "sign," but if, occa- 
sionally, he consents to humor their unworthy craving, 
he frequently astonishes them by commanding that they 
tell no man what they have thus witnessed. It is evi- 
dent that he does not wish to be known as a thaumatur- 
gist. That his audiences fully believed he could and did 
perform miracles is not surprising, when we consider 
that they had been educated to believe in Moses and 
Aaron, and that there was, as yet, no knowledge of sci- 
ence among them. They probably believed in the natur- 
al just as firmly as we do, but they regarded the unnat- 
ural as quite natural. They supposed that all Providen- 



180 Latest lNTERPEi:TATio>^s. 

tial action was direct action ; they had no conception of 
the indirect. We have learned that the very opposite 
of this is always true. What living astronomer could be 
made to believe for one moment that the Almighty ever 
takes hold of a planet or comet directly and pushes it 
through the sky? Why is it that men can tell, a thousand 
years in advance, the exact moment of an eclipse? It is be- 
cause they know there will be no direct interference by 
the hand of God with the movements of heavenly bodies. 
What botanist could be convinced that God ever laid 
hold of a plant directly or that he ever added a root, leaf, 
bud or blossom, by direct manipulation? Why not apply 
the same reasoning to the affairs of mind or soul? 

It is said that the miracles of old were necessary in 
order to convince people of the existence of God and of 
the power of his word. If this be so, why should all the 
genm7ie ones have been confined to olden Jews and early 
Christians ? There were, and still are, a good many other 
people in the world who need to be convinced of the ex- 
istence of a personal God and of the divine nature of the 
Christian religion. Again, if miracles are so very impor- 
tant, as we have been lead to suppose, how is it that 
those who witnessed them most habitually went to the 
dogs at last? According to Jewish literature the Jews 
were the witnesses of more miracles than any other peo- 
ple on earth, yet they adopted the worst forms of idola- 
try, and wandered so far astray that ten tribes became 
hopelessly lost, while the other two were carried captive 
to Babylon. If miracles were absolutely necessary in 
order to prove the Messiahship of Christ, how does it hap- 
pen that the very Jews before whom the so-called mira- 
cles were wrought never accepted him, while the Gentile 
nations, who did not witness any of the miracles, came at 
last to be his disciples? The great fact is that no exhi- 



Miracles, 181 

bition of strange power would ever spiritualize one. 
George Fox wisely said that though he read of Christ 
and God, he knew them only by the like spirit in his own 
soul. If Christ were to appear at this time and cut the 
earth in two like an orange and put it together again, 
without bringing harm to any one, that act would not 
convince me that he is the Son of God; but if there be 
some divinity in me which recognizes the divinity in him, 
that is enough : I am convinced. 

Another question : If miracles can be depended on to 
persuade the world that Jesus was the true Messiah, 
how shall we explain the fact that he warned his fol- 
lowers against putting their trust in that kind of evi- 
dence ? "For," said he, "there shall arise false Christs, 
and false prophets, and shall show great signs and won- 
ders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect." 

Again, it would seem as though there must have been 
only a limited reliance on Christ's spiritual influence and 
natural virtue, if something more than these was thought 
to be necessary. But, if something more was necessary, 
is it not a little singular that miracles should have been 
selected for the purpose, when, of all things in the 
world, they are the easiest doubted, and when, too, the 
world's literature was already filled with accounts of 
them, and every religion was already depending on them 
for the proof of its superior claims ? 

Will some one give us more light on miracles? To 
what people have they been limited ? When, if ever, 
did they cease ? Why did they cease ? According to 
Jacob Boehme, "Witchcraft is an illegitimate miracle ; 
a miracle is legitimate witchcraft." Is — that- — so ? 

Tertullian, as one of the Christian Fathers, ought to 
be worthy of some confidence, and he says that, before 
John was banished to the isle of Patmos, he was thrown 



182 Latest Interpretations. 

into a cauldron of boiling oil, and that he came forth 
unhurt. Why should we not believe this? Would it 
not furnish an additional prop for dogmatical Christian- 
ity? In doubting it, is there not danger of weakening 
the argument which supports biblical wonders ? 

It is also related by the Apostolic Fathers, concerning 
Poly carp, that just as he was about to be burned at the 
stake, the fire shaped itself over him, forming an arch, 
and he was then pierced with a mysterious dagger, on 
which came forth a dove and so much blood that it en- 
tirely quenched the flames. As this account was reli- 
giously told, and, by the early church, was religiously 
believed, why have we neglected to urge it upon the 
mind and conscience of the modern world? In our 
treatment of miracles, discriminating against this one 
and that, are we not strangely inconsistent ? 

In the days of Irenseus, about the end of the second 
century, the resurrection of the dead was very far from 
being esteemed an uncommon event. Coming down to 
the eighth and twelfth centuries, we have the testimony 
of the venerable Bede and the holy Bernard that the age 
of such miracles had not yet passed. 

Shakespeare seems to have sanctioned a belief in other 
than Bible accounts of the same nature. He says : 

^'In the most high and palmy state of Rome, 
A little ere the mighty JuUus fell, 
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead 
Did squeak and jibber in the Roman streets." 

Systematically organized Christianity appears to owe 
its origin to Constantine, who, in waging war against 
Paganism, was decisively influenced by seeing, as he 
says, the luminous trophy of the cross, placed above the 
meridian sun, and inscribed with the following words: 
By this, Conquer. In view of the importance of con- 



MlRACXES. 183 

verting the Roman world to Christianity, why should it 
be deemed a thing incredible, if miracles are to be ac- 
cepted at all, for this one to be true ? Why does it not 
receive a more hearty sanction from those who regard 
Constantine, bloody criminal that he was, as a saint of 
no mean quality ? 

Perhaps a New England miracle will receive a more 
kindly reception at our hands. Here it is in the history 
of Cape Cod, Vol. 1, page 198. It relates to a man whose 
wife was hung as a witch at Charlestown in the year 
1633. Soon after the execution the bereaved husband 
took passage for Barbadoes. The vessel he was in was 
observed to be dangerously rolling, when he was suspi- 
cioned, apprehended and committed to confinement, 
"after which," says the historian, "the ship ceased roll- 
ing." This is not quite equal to the Jonah story, but in- 
asmuch as it is native-born, we ought to be very proud 
of it. 

Genuine miracles abound. Man himself is a miracle. 
Spirituality is a marvel. God is a mystery. Yet all of 
these are facts. Jesus was super-human in the same 
sense that his teaching was super-excellent. In the pop- 
ular thought, miracles are modes of action. They come 
and go. They transcend the understanding of man in 
order that they may the more effectually enlighten his 
understanding. Strange delusion! Shall a person be 
convinced by that which is shrouded in darkness, rather 
than by the lessons of every day wisdom? Will the 
wise God put a premium on confusion of ideas and in- 
tellectual defeat? Life is for study, research, discipline. 
When a wonder is presented for our consideration, it is 
oiir duty to consider it, reason foremost. If we make it 
a substitute for study, rather than an inducement to 
study all the hardtir, we make it a mental hindrance. 



184 Latest Interpretations. 

Does the teacher in our schools stand in the class- 
room giving difficult problems, only to astonish his pu- 
pils, and magnify himself ? No: neither does God thus 
conduct the school of humanity. In the high depart- 
ment of spiritual mstruction, there is no such thing as 
^'showing off." True, the Creator has given the world 
some difficult problems to solve, propounded some very 
hard questions: while we, entirely misapprehending his 
purpose in so doing, have slothfully contented ourselves 
in crying out, ''Miracle! Oh how great is the miracle- 
worker!" 

It is the duty of man to search into the ways and 
means by which all the works of God are wrought. If 
it be not sacrilegious to study the laws which regulate 
the movements of heavenly bodies, to analyze the "dust" 
of which the first man was made, to explain the relation- 
ship of raindrops and sunbeams which constitutes the 
rainbow, and which proves that the "bow of promise" 
must have been a common occurrence even before the 
flood, then it is not sacrilegious to fit a rationalistic inter- 
pretation to ancient records. History has no more 
rights than science. The account of a miracle is not 
half so sacred as the account of noble deeds in every- 
day life. One may lay hands upon it and still escape 
with his life. Why should we belong to that class of 
whom Fontenelle speaks? "Numbers of people," he says, 
"are always standing with open mouths in a silly won- 
derment, enveloped in an obscurity, to which they bow 
with respect; * "^ "^^ and we may be sure that a thing 
los( s its value in their eyes as soon as it can be explained." 

We can still repeat the question which was asked by 
Cicero: "Since when has this secret force disappeared? 
lias it not been since men have become less credulous?" 
Alas! it has not yet disappeared. A motley multitude 



Miracles. 185 

still stand with mouths ajar to hear and believe any- 
thing, no matter how absurd, which purports to come 
from an authority. And how full the world is, and ever 
has been, of queer authorities! 

If the age of miracles has passed, what is all this we 
hear about supernatural visitations of tlie Holy Ghost at 
revival meetings, and astonishing conversions of harden- 
ed sinners ? If this work is wrought by a greater than 
human power, how does it happen that the spurious 
•cases — where the conversion is simply a seven days' won- 
der, and the sinner backslides as soon as the spring work 
opens — are attended at the beginning by precisely the 
same outward phenomena which accompany the cases of 
permanent duration ? "Why is it," said a fond young 
"wife to her husband, " that you do not pay me the same 
•devoted and affectionate attention that you did before 
we were married?" The husband gazed out into the 
street, and replied: "Do you see that man running with 
all his might, and hear him shouting at the top of his 
voice, while he pursues the horse-car ? Very well : 
when he overtakes the car, and secures a place therein, 
he will neither shout nor run, nor make any further ef- 
fort, but just sit still and fold his hands." How graphi- 
<}ally this illustrates the deplorable coldness and indiffer. 
ence which, too often, postdates marriage. How equally 
graphically it ilhistrates the sobering off^ which, in most in- 
stances, follows the spiritually intoxicating effects of 
"getting religion." There is then no more boisterous 
hailing of the chariot of salvation ; no more rushing, 
crowding, and pleading ; no more groans, tears, and ex- 
•citement, nothing but sitting quietly on a soft cushion, 
and the occasional, but not too occasional, payment of a 
nickel to the conductor. Kothing in this world, except a 
2niracle,will ever re-convert^ or really convert at all, such 
a miserable, worthless passenger. 



186 Latest Interpretations. 

If the age of miracles has ceased, why arc prayers 
still offered whose answers would surely involve, if not 
the turning of water into wine, or crumbs into loaves, 
something equally i^reat? Man's thinking, studying, and 
reasoning seem to be wholly based on natural law, while 
his praying is based on something else. 

The verdict of the church certainly is that miracles 
have not ceased. Still, the questions which she is asked 
to answer are just as difficult as those already propound- 
ed. If miracles may still be wrought, why are thousands 
of little innocent, fatherless, motherless children allowed 
to rend the air with heart-rending cries for bread? If, 
on two occasions, thousands of people — mere curiosity 
seekers, to whom the miracle w^as of no benefit, "because 
their hearts were hardened" — were allowed to fill them- 
selves to repletion on almost nothing, why have other 
thousands of devout, praying men and women been left 
to starve? If it were an easy matter to turn tw^o or 
three barrels of water to so much wine, in order that a 
merry wedding party might continue their festivities, it 
would seem to be quite reasonable to expect that, now 
and then, a single glass of wine might be miraculously 
turned to water for the sake of some grieving wife or un- 
fortunate child, whose very life is endangered by the 
husband's insane libations. A boy was once soundly 
whipped after having performed a very meritorious act, 
on the ground that since he had now show^n what he 
could do, he was deserving of severe punishment for not 
always having conducted himself in the same way. 
Many persons are inclined to reason in a similar manner 
with reference to miracles. Instead of being thankful 
for those in which they are asked to believe, they bitter- 
ly complain that such a very valuable force is bo seldom 
employed. The unaccountable partiality of Providence 
seems to be always staring them in the face. 



Miracles. 187 

If miracles exist at all, we need soinetliing in tliese 
days of science, rationalism, and pliiloso])hy entirely un- 
like the kind of which we are accustomed to hear. We 
want one tliat shall compel such a man as Herbert Spen- 
cer to believe in special providences. For example, let 
Sunday, or the Lord's day, be always cloudless, without 
regard to meteorological laws, and I imagine tlic time 
w^ould come when the majority of scientists and every- 
body else w^ould regard it as their solemn duty to attend 
church every Sabbath. 

Whether we like it or not, old-fashioned supernatur- 
alism is coming every day to be more and more aban- 
doned. Myriads of good men in the Christian church, 
down to a very ivcent period, have seen divine warnings 
to repentance in comets. Europe has been frequently 
plunged into alarm by them. Shakespeare, Milton and 
Luther regarded them as portents. Increase Mather 
called one of them "Heaven's alarm to the world;" and 
it was not till 1759 that Prof. Winthrop of Harvard ac- 
knowledged the victory of science over superstition by 
saying in a lecture that "to be thrown into a panic when- 
ever a comet a])pears, Ijetrays a weakness unbecoming a 
reasonable beini;." 

Aside from sudden conversions and remarkable an- 
swers to prayer, no modern miracles are recognized by 
the church. Old miracles and old wine are still regard- 
ed as having special virtues. Concerning the ancient 
miracles, we are in about the same frame of mind as 
that of the lawyer when he said to the deponent : "Since 
you were an eye witness, I shall have to believe that 
you actually saw what you describe, but I am sure I 
should not have believed it, if I had seen it myself." 

IS'othing which I have said need throw any discredit 
on the Bible. It is a much more sensible book than its 



188 Latest Interpretations. 

friends have made it out to be. It never asks us to be- 
lieve in that which is intellectually indigestible, and 
which could lead to no other result than moral dyspepsia. 
True, it presents us with some unique developments, but 
one may readily accept these without violating any re- 
quirement of rationalism. The inspired authors were 
frequently inspired by appearances, rather than by reali- 
ties. To them the sky was a "scroll" that could be roll- 
ed up, the earth stood still while the sun "rose" and 
"set," and things loere what they seemed. As to the 
^'signs" and "wonders," for which everybody was look- 
ing with big eyes, nothing was easier than to magnify 
them to the requirements of the urgent demand of the 
eye. Bishop Marsh, in his explanation of the discrep- 
ancies of Matthew, Mark and Luke, says that "John, 
who was inspired as well as they, had the advantage of 
a better memory." If memory, better or worse, is al- 
lowed to accompany inspiration, there is some room for 
rationalistic doubt concerning the exactness of those 
descriptions which deal with things hard to explain and 
much harder to believe. Besides, as w^as shown in the 
discourse on Revelation, the Bible authors were not pro- 
hibited from employing exaggerated forms of speech. 
Moreover, it must be borne in mind that the Hebrew 
and Messianic chroniclers were, from custom and nation- 
ality, peculiarly poetical. Their inspiration was based 
largely upon the text: "I have multiplied visions and 
used similitudes." All of which means that the "signs" 
of the sacred record need not be literally interpreted. 

What a beautiful story is that of the Holy Grail ! 
How exquisite the moral! How many as})irations it has 
spiritualized and how many noble yearnings it has called 
forth! Why? Because only its moral equivalent has 
been imposed on our faith. Why not trent the marvel- 



Miracles. 189 

oiis accounts of the Bible in the same manner? In this 
way alone can thoughtful persons believe them with their 
whole mind and might, and in this way alone can they 
be made sources of profit to any living soul. To me, 
the Bible is nothing, worse than nothing, only so far as 
I can spiritualiz » it. If I understand it at all, that is 
just what it agks me to do, and that is just what, to the 
best of my ability, I will do. 

Take, for example, the account of what occurred at 
the marriage feast of Cana. If you tell me that water 
was literally converted into wine, I do not believe a word 
of it, but if you tell me that the lesson of the story is 
that Christ, and those who possess his spirit, have the 
power to convert the things of every day life, things 
which are as common as water, into the wine of gladness, 
my soul at once recognizes the heavenly truth and joy- 
fully accepts the miracle. Through the influence of 
Christianity, hovels are made to appear like palaces, 
the beggar's fare is more delicious than the ambrosia of 
the gods, sackcloth constitutes a royal robe, peasants^ 
children are princes to the manor born, abject poverty is 
great wealth, plain bread is luxurious, and pure cold 
water is healtli and exhilaration. 

Consider the miracles of the loaves and fishes: I want 
no religion which requires me to believe that the great 
fields and prairies of the world are not really necessary 
for the production of corn, that sowing and reaping 
might be dispensed with, that the slow processes of 
growth and development are nothing but unw^orthy sub- 
stitutes for the faith and power we might possess, and 
that "much grass " is entirely useless, except to sit down 
upon. I resort at once to the moral equivalent of this 
"mighty sign." Jesus, and his followers to whom the 
promise was given that they should do even "greater 



190 Latest Interpretations. 

works" than they liad abeady seen, are cnpable of taking 
the bread of life, — the loaves of eternal truth, — of which 
they may seem at first to possess only an insignificant 
quantity, and of supplying therewith the wants of the 
hungry world. The more of this wonderful bread that 
they give, the more will it increase in their possession, 
till, at the last, no twelve baskets would begin to hold 
all the fragments that are left. These, too, are well 
worthy to be gathered up, "that nothing be lost." 

Christ cursing the fig-tree! How harsh it sounds! 
Do you reverently open your Bible and tell me that the 
meek and lowly Jesus, being hungry, went to a fig-tree 
for fruit, knowing that it was not the season for figs, 
and then, because his wants were not supplied, stood 
there and cursed the innocent tree, even employing his 
miraculous power to bring upon it the eternal vengeance 
of God ? Would it not have been as reasonable for him 
to serve an oak or a hemlock in the same way? There 
are some who take delio-ht in ridiculino' Christ because of 
his conduct on this occasion. Others there are, who, 
loving Jesus, and respecting the Bible, would fain dis- 
cover a deeper meaning to the story than that which 
generally obtains. I, too, am conscious of a sincere 
affection for the Great Teacher, and will not consent, 
therefore, to believe in any interpretation of his behavior 
which could only degrade him in the estimation of the 
world. To my mind, Christ had too much practical 
common sense — was too wise a man — to be ignorant of 
the seasons, or to condemn a tree for not bearing fruit 
out of season. The Scriptures of old had already taught 
that "To every thing there is a season, and a time to 
every purpose under the heaven ;" a time to plant and a 
time to pluck ; and surely the Son of God would have 
been likely to pay proper respect to this edict of nature's 
God. 



Miracles. 191 

The fig-tree in question was situated at, or near, 
Bethphage, ov jylcice of Jigs. Soil and climate here being 
especially favorable to the production of this fruit, it is 
fair to suppose that Bethphage was the one place of all 
others for early figs. It is stated that Jesus went to this 
place which he saw afar off, if haply he might find any- 
thing thereon. He could not find what he wanted in 
the market because the time of figs, that is, the regular 
fig season, had not yet arrived. But here, at this place 
of early Jigs ^ here in this secluded, sunny nook of the 
Mount of Olives, he might reasonably expect to find 
what he sought. This expectation not being realized, 
he caused the tree which bore nothing but leaves to 
wither. 

Now let us recall the whole situation. Jesus had 
been up to Jerusalem morally prospecting. What had he 
found? A den of thieves in the very temple of Jehovah. 
Political and spiritual corruption was plainly palpable. 
There were the Scribes and Pharisees, self-righteous, 
bigoted, superstitious, hypocritical, and indecent. At 
this moment, Jesus fully realized the sad truth that his 
own people, the Jewish nation, would not accept him. 
They who should have been the early figs, the first-fruit, 
of Christianity, offered nothing to his hungry soul but 
leaves — the hopeless leaves of worldliness. 

The Jewish mode of teaching and learning important 
lessons, was unlike our own. Every strange phenome- 
non, appearance or circumstance, was utilized for j^oint- 
ing a moral or adorning a tale. On this fruitless fig-tree 
Jesus found room to hang the rich fruit of eternal truth. 
It was his grandest opportunity. His curse was not one 
of epithet or of anger; nor did the killing of the tree 
involve any miraculous act. He might have asked some 
one to dig around it and cut off its roots, or he, himself. 



192 Latest Interpretations. 

might h«ave girdled it. Of course these suppositions 
will be piously sneered at by all those whose precon^ 
ceived convictions and lifelong prejudices in favor of 
miracles, are as immovable as the rock of Gibraltar, and 
as unyielding as the law of the Medes and Persians. 

In that withered tree, Judea, the Bethphage of the 
Lord's husbandry, should have read its approaching 
doom. It was an object-lesson at once thrillingly forcible 
and graphically true. As a Christian church, blessed 
with liberal views concerning the universal fatherhood 
of God and the universal brotherhood of man, this lesson 
of the fig-tree should come home to us. It is our sacred 
privilege to bring forth the first fruits of a grand awak- 
ening in the religious world. Neglecting, rejecting, or 
abusing our trust, the work will finally be given into the 
more loyal hands of others, while we shall stand by the 
highway of human progress, bearing nothing but with- 
ered leaves — the curse of unfaithfulness upon us. God 
forbid ! 



VICTORY, 



A^CTOHY. 



But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through 
our Lord Jesus Christ. — 1 Cor. xv. : 57. 

The question we are about to consider is, does this 
text state an universal truth ? Will the time ever come 
when every one, as regards its essential spirit, can repeat 
it? Will the victory over death, both physical and mor- 
al, be complete ? Or, is Jehovah's promise founded on 
nothing but a ''sentimental hope" when he says : "By 
myself have I sworn, the word is gone forth from my 
mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto 
me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." 
And were the Bible writers merely indulging in j^oetical 
fancy when they wrote : 

''For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain sal- 
vation by our Lord Jesus Christ." 

"Tliis is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." 

"He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied." 

"For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but 
to save them." 

"For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his 
feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." 

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men 
unto me." 

"For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost." 

"And there shall be no more curse." 

"Behold, all souls are mine." 

"Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there any- 
thing too hard forme?" 

"For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, 
and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it 
bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and 



196 Latest Interpetatioxs. 

bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of 
my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accom- 
plish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing where- 
to I sent it." 

*'For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our 
Savior; who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the 
knowledge of the truth." 

*'For the Loi'd will not cast off forever; but though he cause 
grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of 
his mercies." 

''To the Lord, our God, belong mercies and forgiveness, 
though we have rebelled against him." 

''What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, 
who can be against us?" 

As Roman fathers sometimes took their sons to wit- 
ness the drunken debaucheries of inebriates, in order 
that the loathsomeness of the carousals might serve as a 
warning against intemperance, so it may not be amiss to 
quote some of the opinions of men who are opposed to 
the doctrine of universal salvation. It not infrequently 
occurs that truth gains its greatest triumph through 
contrast. A positive denial of Universalism on the part 
of one man, may pave the way for its reception on the 
part of another. Here then is the testimony. 

The Westminster Confession of Faith audaciously 
dogmatises thus : "Neither are any other redeemed, ef- 
fectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, 
but the elect only." Why a father should "adopt" a 
child who is already his own offspring is difiicult of com- 
prehension. But we forget! He is to adopt some of the 
children of the Adversaiy — his eternal enemy. 

The Andover Creed gently murmurs in this wise : 
"The wicked will awake to shame and everlasting con- 
tempt, and with devils be plunged into the lake that 
burneth with fire and brimstone forever and ever.^^ 
What about these devils? Were they born of devils? 
Where and how did they originate? Did a God once 



Victory. * 197 

suffer and die that they, too, miglit be saved? If not, 
why not? Did infinite love stop short before it readied 
them ? 

The Congregationalists' Confession of Faith, adopt- 
ed by the General Association of New York, presents 
this as its fourteentli article : "The souls of believers are, 
at their death, made perfectly holy, and immediately ta- 
ken to glory. At the end of the world there will be a 
resurrection of the dead, and a final judgment of all 
mankind, when the saints shall be publicly acquitted by 
Christ, the judge, and admitted to endless glory : and 
those who have continued in their sins shall be doomed 
to endless punishment." It may be well to remark right 
here that, although there has been recently published a 
new Congregationalist statement of doctrine, which may, 
or may not, be adopted by individual churches of that 
denomination, there is nothing therein which conflicts 
with the above quotation. In the new creed, this lan- 
guage is employed in Article IV. : "We believe that God 
icould have all men to return to him, etc." Is it not a 
little singular that the "will have" of Saint Paul's Epistle 
to Timothy becomes "would have" when put into a 
creed. The implication is that what the Almighty would 
haue^ he may not be quite able to execute. The chief 
superiority of the latest interpretation of the Congrega- 
tionalists' Confession of Faith, cons ists in the numerous 
things which it leaves unsaid. Rev. Joseph Cook, who 
will undoubtedly be elected to the oftice of pope, as soon 
as Protestantism decides to have one, and who will cer- 
tainly be infallible in the estimation of at least one 
American citizen, has decided that the new creed is 
"semi-Universalist and semi-Unitarian." I think myself 
that it is altogether too semi. 

The Presbyterian Standard i-uthlessly pitches the 



198 Latest Interpretations. 

great majority of mankind into endless perdition in this 
wise : "They, who, never having heard the Gosjjel, know 
not Jesus Christ and believe not in him, cannot be saved, 
be they never so diligent to frame their lives according 
to the light of Nature or the laws of that religion which 
they profess; neither is there salvation in any other, but 
in Christ alone, who is the Savior only of his body, the 
Church." According to this, eternal woe is mainly the 
result of misfortune, or the unhappy accident of having 
been born in the wrong part of the world. 

The American Board of Commissions of Foreign Mis- 
sions, corroborates the above view in these words : "To 
send the Gospel to the Heathen is a work of great exi- 
gency. Within the last thirty years a whole generation 
of five hundred millions have gone down to eternal 
death." It is because such monstrous falshoods as this 
are unblushingly uttered that missionaries are not al- 
Avays provided with a sufficient fund to carry forward 
their work. The refusal indicates no bad heart on the 
part of those who are asked to give, but is simply an in- 
dignant protest against an idea which blasphemes the 
love of God. The missionaries who hold such opinions 
are the most hopelessly benighted heathen. 

That the horrid doctrines which disgrace theology are 
the result of a too literal rendering of the mere drapery 
of Bible truth is quite a23parent. For example, Jerome 
says : "If the dead be not raised with flesh and bones, 
how can the damned, after the judgment, gnash their 
teeth in hell?" Sure enough : and what are those to do 
who have artificial teeth ? 

Philo says : "He who suffers from incurable vice 
must endure its dire penalties, banished into the place of 
the impious, until the whole of eternity." We quite 
agree with this author. All that he says is, that an in- 



Victory. 199 

curable disease can't be cured. Wonderful statement! 
But would it not be well to first show that there is such 
a thing as an incurable vice. When the Great Physician 
has put his fullest powers to the utmost test, must his sor- 
rowful cry be heard throughout the chambers of the uni- 
verse. Baffled! Baffled! Baffled! 

Perhaps Suso has drawn the most vivid repre- 
sentation of everlasting torment ever penned by the in- 
genuity of man, as follows: "Give us a millstone, says 
the damned, as large as the whole earth, and so wide in 
circumference as to touch the sky all around, and let a 
little bird come in a hundred thousand years, and pick 
off a small particle of stone, not larger than the tenth 
part of a grain of millet, and after another hundred thou- 
sand years let him come again, so that in ten hundred 
thousand years, he would pick off as much as a grain of 
millet, we wretched sinners would desire nothing but that 
thus the stone might have an end, and thus our pains 
also; yet even that cannot be." Will my self-styled Or- 
thodox friend try the experiment of fully grasping this 
description of the punishment of the unrighteous? If, for 
one moment, he can clearly comprehend its terrible sig- 
nificance, it will result in his conversion to Universalism, 
or to demonolatry, or to lunacy. 

We turn now from these sickening exhibitions of 
evangelical conceit, to the hopeful songs of the true 
Evangelists."^ 

*It will be observed that I frequently use the words '^Ortho- 
dox," '^evangelical," etc., accordingto their popular acceptation, 
rather than according to their strict etymological meaning. If 
^'Orthodox" means "sound in the Christian faitli," and if "evan- 
gelical" properly relates only to that which is in the Gospel or 
Good Xews, it may yet come to pass that the promulgi'^ors 
of had neics will cease to denouce their neio;hbors as un-orthodox 
and un-evangelical. 



200 Latest Interpretations. 

Listen to Teiui) son while he sings of 

"That God which ever Hves and loves, 
One God, one law, one element, 
And one far-off, divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves." 
The author of "Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta 
Family" speaks grandly, as follows : 

^^And in that perfect marriage day. 

All earth's lost love shall live once more; 
All lack and loss shall pass away. 

And all find all not found before; 
Till all the worlds shall live and glow 
In the Great Love's great overflow." 

The question has just been discussed in a theological 
circle, Is God happy ? If one is to judge by all the ser- 
mons and prayers to which the good Lord has been 
ni*ged to listen, one would be likely to say. No, God is 
not happy. Again, there is no possible w^ay in which the 
doctrine of endless misery can be turned so as to leave 
the Almighty in any other than a most pitiable condi- 
tion. But what spectacle is this! The universe — the 
Boundless Soul of infinite space — suffering forever be- 
cause of the rebellious souls of men. Then let all the 
saints be decent enough to suffer wuth him. 

Yet, in view of actual suffering from the beginning 
to the end of time, why should not the Almighty be un- 
happy? I visit a sick chamber and am surprised to find 
a mother whose countenance is radiant with joy, while 
her sick child is tossing upon a bed of pain. ''How is 
this?" I say ; "You so exceedingly cheerful while in the 
very presence of a suffering invalid! Have you no 
heart?" "Oh," she exclaims, in sweetly ringing tones, 
"the doctor has just been here and assures me that all 
danger has passed, that my dear one will certainly recover 
and be in ])Ossessicn of all the blessings of perfect 
heahh." 



Victory. 201 

And this is why God is happy. He knows that in 
the whole moral universe there is not a fatal disease. 
He knows that every one of his children will certainly 
recover. Once assure the mother that the babe will 
never get well, then if she can be ha])py she is not a 
mother, but a devil incarnate. Once let it be proclaimed 
in heaven that some of the children of our Great Father 
are sick unto death, and that death endless, then if the 
Father can be joyous he is — what? Remember, too, 
that the Supreme Being is unchangeable. If, therefore, 
he is for one moment made wretched by the irremediable 
loss of any of his offspring, that wretchedness never had 
beginning and can never have an end. Tlie same un- 
changeableness applies also to his anger. Knowing the 
conclusion as well as the process of all things from their 
very incipiency, there is no more reason why divine Om- 
niscience should be \s rathful a single instant, than there 
is that he should have been so always, and is always so 
to remain. Such a Deity would be the curse of the 
universe, from whose terrible doom nor men nor angels 
could ever escape. 

Let no one say, that, after all, it matters very little 
what we think of God, so that we make our conduct 
what it should be. Rioht thinkino; rio;ht lovino- and 
right living stand or fall together. Aurelius painted the 
portraits of many ladies, but close observers could dis- 
cover in each face some resemblance to her whom the 
artist loved and to whorii lie had given his heart. Our 
belief concerning God will thus manifest itself in our 
life's work. ''Show me the man you honor," says Car- 
lyle, "I know by that symptom better than by any other 
what kind of a man you yourself are." And he might 
just as well hav^e said, show me the God you honor, and 
your own condition may be equally well determined. 



202 Latest Interpretations. 

The "scheme of salvation," on which self-denomi- 
nated evangelical churches lay so much stress, is defective 
in this, that it not only does not save all of mankind, but 
that it does not even ])ropose to save all. One cannot 
listen to the pious laudations that are heaped upon it by 
millions of prayers and sermons, without being reminded 
of the French surgeon, who, in speaking of six hundred 
patients on whom he had operated, was asked by an 
Englishman how many he had saved : "Ah, monsieur," 
said he, "I lose them all, but ze operation was very bril- 
liant." A threshing machine might be very elaborately 
and ingeniously constructed, but if, when it had finished 
its work, a large quantity of wheat still remained in the 
straw, the machine w^ould be condemned. It may be ar- 
gued that lost sinners represent nothing but straw, but 
this position cannot, for one moment, be sustained. 
Every soul has some share of good, some few grains of 
wheat mixed with the abundant chaff. 

There recently came a pathetic story from Ohio : 
Two children were kidna])ped by gypsies. Their agon- 
ized father employed a detective and began the pursuit. 
During many months he followed the abductors from 
state to state. One day he entered a gypsy camp at 
Covington, Tenn., and almost the first person he saw^ was 
his little son gathering fire-wood. As soon as the boy 
saw his father, he dropped everything, and, with a cry 
of joy, ran to the outstretched arms. But the girl was 
not there; she had been taken to another and more dis- 
tant camp. Thither the father hastened, where he found 
his daughter, but, alas, how changed ! Her captors had 
done everything in their power to destroy her identity. 
They had darkened her skin, dyed her hair, clothed her 
in rags, and branded an ugly scar upon lier neck. But 
it was of no avail. Parent and child immediately recog- 



Victory. 203 

nized each othei', and in spite of the most violent oi)po- 
sition on the part of the kidnappers, the little one was 
safely returned to her happy home. Let these gypsies 
symbolize the spirit of worldliness. How it stains and 
disfigures evei-y soul which it captures. With whnt rags 
it clothes, with what scars it brands, with what t} ranny 
it rules its wretched slave I Nevertheless, some day, the 
Father of that soul will appear and demand his own. 
He cannot be deceived, he will not be thwarted. Be- 
neath dirt, tatters, discoloration and disfiguration, the 
divine child will be seen and known. Parent and off- 
spring will be re-united in joyful embrace, while home 
and heaven will be one and the same. 

God's final \'ictory will be the most glorious and 
most complete thing in the universe. Men will not be 
pulled or driven into the kingdom of holiness. There will 
be no slaves in paradise, but the hardest and most sinful 
propensities of human nature will be melted and re- 
moulded in the full blaze of divine love. I well remem- 
ber the day when we marched into fallen Vicksburg, 
where a large Confederate army was captured. Yet, it 
was not capture 1. Prisoners are not captured simply 
because compelled by a superior force to lay doAvn their 
arms. The real victory over the rebels came afterwards, 
when we began to feed their famishing, and to adminis- 
ter restoratives to their sick. They had not expected 
this. Their hearts were touched. Their eyes filled with 
tears ; while many of them declared that they w^ould 
never renew hostilities ao;ainst the federal o^overnment. 
This is the philosophy of salvation. Not man^s poicei* to 
do evil, but his disjjosUio?i to do evil must be overcome, 
ere he can have any part in the heavenly life. 

Another thing which I well remember is this: At 
the close of the war, when I started for home, I left all 



204 Latest Interpretations. 

my military accoutrements behind. I was to begin a new 
kind of life in which none of tliese things would be 
needed. Thus, at death, I expect a like change will be 
made. The trappings of materialism, the weapons of 
corporeal w^arfare, the ugly instruments of fleshhood, 
can have no place in a purely spiritual existence. The 
dying Saint Paul was conscious that he had fought a 
good fight; he was equally certain that his fighting was 
finished. Some of us have fought a pretty bad fight, 
but whether good or bad, death will close the battle 
scene and we shall enter upon a career of peace. All 
future triumphs must be brought to us by the white 
winged messenger. Victories will still await our aspiring- 
souls, and perfection will still be unattained, but, thank 
the Good Father, we shall have no more conflicts with 
blood and iron. This, too, is the philosophy of salvation. 
The soul, for the first time, can be gotten at. It will be 
like a struggling plant, which had been covered over 
with w^ood or stone. The obstruction removed, the plant 
shoots into the sunlight, offering to smiling heaven a 
thank-token of bloom and fruit. 

"Bastard wheat, or tares," says Dr. Adam Clarke, 
"may become good wheat by being transplanted to a 
better soil." He may not know it, but he is herein giv- 
ing us the very argument which supports the hope of 
universal salvation. 

The black and red pines of Japan are colored 
according to the soil where they grow\ In clean, sandy 
ground they are red, while in black ground trees of the 
same kind are black. This, too, is the philosophy of 
salvation. When transplanted from the present world 
to another, we shall find ourselves more favorably situa- 
ted, both as to soil and climate. We shall partake of 
the purity which surrounds us. Here is our winter; 
there will be our summer. 



Victory. 205 

"Plere is the sorrow, tlie sighing, 
Here is the cloud and the night, 
Here is the sickness, the dying, 

There are the life and the light. 
Here is the fading, the wasting. 

The foe that so w^atchfully waits. 
There are the hills everlasting. 
The city with beautiful gates." 
When a meteor strikes earth's atmosphere it is cold- 
er than a block of ice, but the next moment it is all 
ablaze — changed in the twinkling of an eye. This, too, 
is the philosophy of salvation. When a soul departs 
from the wintry regions of sin and enters the life-giving 
atmosphere of true spirituality, may not the change it 
undergoes be exceedingly great? Will not death intro- 
duce us to surroundings that shall be favorable to the 
welfare of the soul? To think otherwise is to impugn 
the love, wisdom and power of God. 
Moore says: 

"Like the stained w^eb that whitens in the sun, 
Grow pure by being purely shone upon." 
This, too, is the philosophy of salvation. If the 
countenance of the Most High, the face of eternal 
truth, and the glorified appearance of the saints, are not 
to shine upon a darkened soul and produce some benefi- 
cent effect, what is the meaning of the "power of good 
influences?" 

How shall we interjDret the conversion of the "chief 
of sinners," Saul of Tarsus? It has been called miracu- 
lous: it proved to be an irresistible influence of some 
sort. Was such influence, whatever its origin or nature, 
entirely exhausted on that occasion? In God's own 
chosen time, may it not come to each and all? To judge 
otherwise is to regard Jehovah as being miraculously 
partial in the treatment of his children. 

To keep one burning forever, as though he w^ere a 



20G Latest Interpretations. 

candle, and yet to prevent forever the fuel from beinij 
exhausted, is the miracle in which self-denominated evan- 
gelical Christians have been heartily believing. Is it not 
a little singular that God should be expected to perform 
this miracle in behalf of damnation^ when, if an equally 
great miracle were wrought in behalf of salvation^ the 
time would come Avhen there Avould be nobody left to 
damn ? 

*' 'Tis not so stated in the bond!" old Shylock spoke, 
^'And hence my foe shall never mercy find;" 

" 'Tis not so stated in the creed!" say simple folk, 
^'And hence salvation's not for all mankind. " 

In the great struggle for existence, the fittest will 
finally survive. Shall it be good or evil ? What is the 
fittest thing to completely triumph in this universe, con- 
sidering who owns it? Sin flourishes today, carries 
many outposts, but who is in command of the citadel? 

Think of a billion human beings, and billions of 
other creatures, constantly polluting the air with their 
foul breath; while, during every moment of day and 
nio'ht, there arises from each street and alley and from 
all the land, great volumes of poisonous vapors, ever 
flowing currents of deleterious gas, disease-laden fumes, 
and death-bearing emanations. Yet, somehow, the at- 
mosphere returns to us from sea and mountain, freighted 
with purity, power and life ; for the God of nature has 
converted that which was vile into that which is whole- 
some. This, too, is the philosophy of salvation. 

There was once a proverb which ran thus : "It is 
better to be Herod's hog than Herod's son." If ever a 
human being is doomed to never-ceasing woe, he can 
truly say, — and how strange it will sound, — It were bet- 
ter to have been God's vilest brute than to have been his 
own offspring. 



Victory. 207 

We do not forget the ])Owers of evil. They have 
had thousands of years' expei-ience in leading men down- 
ward. Today an infant soul comes into the world only 
to meet this mighty army. What an unequal contest! 
The child would eat of the Tree of Life,— rich, holy, 
abundant life, — but before it are placed cherubim — hydra- 
headed monsters — with flaming swords, guarding every 
passage to the heavenly fruit. What can the infant do 
against such opposition? It can grow. This is the 
whole story. This, too, is the philosophy of salvation. 

At the breaking out of the Rebellion, we suffered a 
Bull Run defeat. But those lauoh best who lauo-h last. 
The difference between the Xorth and the South was the 
difference between potentialities. The South was at its 
best at the outset ; whereas, the North could call for 
"three hundred thousand more," and yet again and again 
repeat the call. Thus the immortal soul falls before its 
innumerable foes to rise again. Of Angels in Heaven it 
can call for three hundred thousand more, while the 
powers of sin have no unlimited source from which to 
replete their ranks. Man has infinite reserves — God, 
Christ, and the eternal verities. Thus, Faith clearly fore- 
sees, and Christianity j^lainly foretells, what the end 
shall be. 

Christian friends, the series of discourses on Latest 
Interpretations reaches its conclusion. That you have 
followed me so attentively is evidence of your earnest in- 
terest in the themes discussed. May your enthusiasm 
respecting them never cease. They are worthy of your 
persistent thought and prayerful devotion. Briefly to re- 
capitulate : — 

1 believe that Rationalism is the only solid founda- 
tion for faith, hope and conviction ; that God the Father 
is infinite in the wisdom which governs, the love w^hich 



208 Latest Ixtekpretations. 

blesses, and the power which saves; that Evil is finite, 
both as to its power and duration; that Christ is the 
Son of God, and that, as such, he is also our divine broth- 
er ; that spiritualized Christiaxity is an all-sufficient re- 
ligion ; that Selfhood is never entirely depraved; that 
Brotherhood involves the certainty of universal salva- 
tion; that CoxsoLATiox should be affectionately admin- 
istered by the church to all who are in any trouble, 
whether they be saints who sin, or sinners byname; that 
Immortality should be taught in such a manner that no 
one could wish it to be untrue, or deem it uni-easonable ; 
that Progressiois^ is our present duty and will be our 
eternal privilege; that direct Revelation greatly aided 
the authors of the Bible, and that it is possible to all 
men, since God is everywhere accessible; that Miracles, 
as commonly defined, are unworthy of the confidence 
they have received and absolutely incapable of elevating 
the human mind to a true conception of the moral uni- 
verse ; and tliat a complete Victory is positively assured, 
when every soul in Creation shall have received full and 
just punishment for its entire w^ickedness, and w^hen God, 
with all Avhieli that sacred name implies, shall be all in 
all. Amen. 



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